[GNC] AqBanking OFX DirectConnect issues

[Dan Howell]

Hi,

After upgrading from GnuCash 3.7 to 4.0 on Windows 10, I realize that comes
with an AqBanking upgrade as well, requiring me to re-setup all of my
account connections.

One issue I'm having is with a Charles Schwab investment account. With
AqBanking 5 I was able to import successfully, but with AqBanking 6, I see
in the OFX logs that if fails with error code 2000, "Account information
may contain bad or invalid characters such as spaces." I tried all the
suggestions on the GnuCash OFXDirectConnect page to no avail.

After using the logs to generate OFX requests by hand with curl, I was able
to determine the problem. The Schwab OFX server is picky about the
placement of the <DTASOF> parameter. So while the following request sent by
AqBanking 6 fails:

[...most of OFX request redacted...]
</INCTRAN>
<INCOO>Y
<INCPOS>
<INCLUDE>Y
</INCPOS>
<INCBAL>Y
</INVSTMTRQ>
<DTASOF>20200709015145.000
</INVSTMTTRNRQ>
</INVSTMTMSGSRQV1>
</OFX>

By sending the same request through cURL, but moving the <DTASOF> parameter
to right after <INCPOS> (where it was with AqBanking 5), the query succeeds:

[...most of OFX request redacted...]
</INCTRAN>
<INCOO>Y
<INCPOS>
<DTASOF>20200709015145.000
<INCLUDE>Y
</INCPOS>
<INCBAL>Y
</INVSTMTRQ>
</INVSTMTTRNRQ>
</INVSTMTMSGSRQV1>
</OFX>

So if this could be routed to the proper person who could fix this, I would
be grateful for this to be fixed in the next version.

------

Another, unrelated issue, and mostly just an annoyance, is that when
importing, e.g, from my Chase bank account, the <NAME> and <MEMO> fields
are imported into the GnuCash Description field as "Memo string; Name
string". This results in e.g.:

   <NAME>Online Payment 9901156465 To SOU<MEMO>THERN CALIFORNIA GAS

Being imported as:

   THERN CALIFORNIA GAS; Online Payment 9901156465 To SOU

This is backwards from what would be expected--the name field should
clearly come before the memo field. As I perused through several other
banks' OFX files, I couldn't find any examples where it would make sense to
put the Memo field before the Name field, so this isn't unique to Chase.

By the way, this is different than when importing OFX files manually (i.e.
through File > Import), where the <NAME> string is put in the Description
field, and the <MEMO> is put in the Notes field, although with added cruft
like, "OFX ext. info: |Trans type:Generic debit|Memo:" which is a bit
annoying to me as well. It would be nice if how OFX fields are imported
could be made customizable on a per account basis. My OCD brain insists on
fixing these quirks to make it more presentable, consuming precious amounts
of my time copying, pasting, and deleting, so I wish this could be
automated somehow.

Dan Howell
dhowell66 at gmail.com