[GNC] Import matcher shortcomings, OFX realm (at least)

Wed May 6 20:20:03 EDT 2020

Ok agreed. There'd need to be a mechanism to skip individual split import
as well.

On Thu, 7 May 2020, 8:17 am Derek Atkins, <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:

> What if there are no matches?
> Then the LHS won't be empty.
>
> -derek
> Sent using my mobile device. Please excuse any typos.
> On May 6, 2020 8:09:03 PM Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Are you discussing qif or ofx. The main difficulty is qif code written 20
> > years ago and has not modernised.
> >
> > The multi to multi issue will always be very difficult, hence I'd
> > previously imagined a two pane register, qif/ofx on left, existing
> register
> > on right, and drag and drop to marry up the splits. A successful pairing
> > removes line on both panes out of sight. Matching is complete when the
> LHS
> > is empty.
> >
> > On Thu, 7 May 2020, 3:39 am David Reiser via gnucash-user, <
> > gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Overall, yes. But this case presents a many-to-many sorting out vs. the
> >> one-to-many resolution in QIF. And none of those unique IDs exist in the
> >> gnucash file until the transactions have finished being imported.
> >> --
> >> Dave Reiser
> >> dbreiser at icloud.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > On May 6, 2020, at 2:50 PM, Jean Laroche <ripngo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > QIF is a lot worse the OFX. OFX transactions have a unique ID, which
> QIF
> >> ones don't have...
> >> >
> >> > On 5/6/20 11:48 AM, David Reiser wrote:
> >> >> Thanks, Jean.
> >> >> I think the QIF importer has some code that detects multiple possible
> >> matches and pops up a “select the right match” dialog/window. Perhaps
> that
> >> can be reworked/incorporated. I don’t use QIF too much, but I think that
> >> particular behavior gets triggered in a step a little closer to the
> final
> >> import sequence than the General Matcher window gets to when it has
> decided
> >> it has already identified matches.
> >> >> --
> >> >> Dave Reiser
> >> >> dbreiser at icloud.com
> >> >>> On May 6, 2020, at 2:16 PM, Jean Laroche <ripngo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> I have run into this issue as well! Thanks for looking into it.
> >> >>> I'll try to fix it. What should really be done here, I'm guessing is
> >> that the matcher should not match several transactions to the same one.
> >> This may not be super easy to fix, but I'll take a look.
> >> >>> Jean
> >> >>>
> >> >>> On 5/6/20 11:00 AM, David Reiser via gnucash-user wrote:
> >> >>>> Michael Fross said:
> >> >>>>> I have to keep importing the same QFX file over and over until I
> get
> >> >>>>> “nothing to import” message. If I don’t, it seems to miss
> >> transactions in
> >> >>>>> the file. Not sure about QIF, but Maybe it’s similar.
> >> >>>>>
> >> >>>>> Michael
> >> >>>> Ok, I’ll split this out into another discussion.
> >> >>>> The need for multiple attempts at importing the same ofx file to
> get
> >> all the transactions imported is probably a result of a shortcoming in
> the
> >> matcher code when multiple same-dollar-value transactions (or nearly the
> >> same if Commercial ATM fee threshold is set to anything greater than
> 0.00)
> >> appear in the ofx file. One very common cause of such cases is vending
> >> machine transactions.
> >> >>>> If you never enter any of the same-value transactions manually, and
> >> only import them, then you’ll probably be OK, because the matcher will
> >> suggest that all the transactions should be Added rather than matched.
> >> >>>> If, however, you have even one of the same-value transactions
> entered
> >> manually, and a set of 5 same-value transactions incoming in the import
> >> file, the matcher’s default behavior is to display all 5 incoming
> >> transactions as having a good candidate match. The problem is that all
> five
> >> of those incoming transactions are pointed at a single transaction in
> the
> >> gnucash file. If you blithely click OK in the Matcher window, the import
> >> process matches the first incoming transaction to the existing
> transaction.
> >> Then when the second same-value transaction gets examined, the matcher
> says
> >> “Oh, I already matched that existing transaction, I’ll ignore this one”.
> >> And all subsequent same-value transaction that had reported they had a
> >> match in the file are ignored because the candidate match is already
> taken.
> >> >>>> Matching can be even messier if you have, say, 4 transactions of
> >> $2.00 entered in your data file, but 7 $2.00 transactions coming in with
> >> the import.
> >> >>>> The reason sequential imports work is that once a candidate is
> >> matched and the import process ends, the next time the import process is
> >> launched, that first transaction is no longer a candidate match because
> it
> >> now has an imported transaction ID associated with it (and the
> transaction
> >> ID prevents the incoming transaction from appearing at all anymore), and
> >> the matcher moves on (sometimes only one candidate transaction at a
> time).
> >> >>>> I did file a bug on this several years ago, but the matcher’s
> default
> >> match identification has not changed. What was added is the ability to
> >> double click a transaction in the matcher dialog window to see
> alternative
> >> transactions to match against. If you see multiple transactions in your
> >> matcher window with the same dollar value, you must inspect the
> potential
> >> matches for each one and select a different one from the top candidate
> >> picked by default for all the same-value transactions.
> >> >>>> I hope this explanation helps reduce the number of repeat imports
> you
> >> have to use.
> >> >>>> Dave
> >> >>>> --
> >> >>>> Dave Reiser
> >> >>>> dbreiser at icloud.com
> >> >>>> _______________________________________________
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