[GNC] GNUCash beginner setup

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Fri Apr 3 12:41:26 EDT 2020


Did you conduct the imports in a single pass or did you import one month (or so) at a time?

The recommended procedure for several reasons (training the importer among them) is to import in small batches.

For clarity and consistency, GnuCash doesn’t have ‘categories’. GnuCash has ‘accounts’ which in your case are most likely to be all under Expenses, but some might also be assets or liabilities. I think the normal procedure is to create those accounts first, then do the import.

If you imported everything to Imbalance and *then* assigned accounts, the importer didn’t learn anything. Create the accounts first. It only learns what you assign *within* the import process.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Apr 3, 2020 w14d94, at 11:21 AM, denz <denzil at mpi-sws.org> wrote:
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I am a new user to GNUCash and I have read the Help Manual [0] and some
> popular video tutorials [1]. I have also played around with the software. I
> am now planning to transition to use an accounting software for full time. 
> 
> Current Situation 
> 
> I have 3 checking bank accounts with prior transaction history and only
> transaction CSV export functionality. Bank 1 with ~ 1400 transactions over
> last 4 years with the CSV format below (Bank1.csv attached with this
> message.)
> 
> "Date","Payee","Account number","Transaction type","Payment
> reference","Category","Amount (EUR)","Amount (Foreign Currency)","Type
> Foreign Currency","Exchange Rate"
> "2016-05-24","XXXXXX","DE33XXXXXXX","Income","Num bank2.csv
> <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t378947/bank2.csv>  ber26
> Maestro","Income","1000.0","","",""
> "2016-05-27","YYYYYY","","Transaction type
> unknown","","ATM","-100.0","-100.0","EUR","1.0"
> 
> 
> Bank 2 with ~80 transactions over last 1 year with CSV format below
> (Bank2.csv attached with this message)
> 
> TTransaction date,Value date,Transaction type,Booking
> text,Amount,Currency,Account of initiator,Bank code of account of
> initiator,IBAN of account of initiator,Category
> 18.03.2020,18.03.2020,debit,"Monatsrechnung R2000006457 S0151396 270901
> End-to-End-Ref.: 3656423 Mandatsref: MBSS0151396270930925 Gläubiger-ID:
> DE12ZZZ00002150146 SEPA-BASISLASTSCHRIFT
> wiederholend",-25.98,EUR,987341500,12040000,DEXXXXXXXXX,"Electricity,
> heating, water"
> 02.03.2020,02.03.2020,debit,"WEMAG AG Knr. 9946518 46.00/Abschlag vom 01.
> 03.2020 1633629/Obj.: 2144729 End-to-End-Ref.: 22182554 Mandatsref:
> SEPA0009946518G0000355224 Gläubiger-ID: DE70ZZZ00000077958
> SEPA-BASISLASTSCHRIFT
> wiederholend",-46.00,EUR,987341500,12040000,DEXXXXXXX,"Electricity, heating,
> water"
> 
> 
> Future Situation - What would I like to do?
> 
> Categorised History of my Transactions with Categories - Electricity, Heat,
> Water, Groceries, Restaurants, Travel, Shopping, Salary, Tax Refund, Drug
> Store etc.
> 
> What did I do?
> 
> 1. I opened two checking accounts for each of the banks with opening
> balance 0
> 2. I used the import CSV function to import both Bank1.csv and Bank2.csv, I
> marked all the required fields and it gets imported
> 3. I manually categorised a few months of transactions to achieve some
> "training" for the CSV import 
> 
> What do I observe?
> 
> 1. I observe an Imbalanced EUR extra entry 
> 2. Categorization is a hit and miss even for the same scheduled transaction
> with same values. For example, the transaction named "rent" with the same
> EUR amount "xxx" will get classified as something else despite giving it
> training for many times
> 3. Opening account balances do not match after a final full import of
> transactional CSV data
> 
> I compare this to KMyMoney [2] and import etc. just works out there with a
> click. The most challenging part was when I exported my KMyMoney neatly
> categorized data into QIF and imported it again into GNUCash, it led to the
> same behaviour of mismatched opening account balances.
> 
> I would like to use GNUCash, I really do but it seems KMyMoney might be
> better. Before I make a decision, I want to understand the perspectives from
> expert users on the group to see if I am missing something. What do you guys
> think?
> 
> 
> 
> bank1.csv <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t378947/bank1.csv>   
> bank2.csv <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t378947/bank2.csv>  
> 
> [0] https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?doc=help
> 
> [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqAaScYVeRQ
> 
> [2] https://kmymoney.org




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