[GNC] CSV matching produces duplicates?

[David Cousens]

For the transfer account, the second account in a transaction being
imported, GnuCash does in fact work that way, i.e. it imports all
transactions in which the transfer account has not been specified to an
Imbalance account for the currency of the primary account in the
transaction. The presence of transactions in the Imbalance accounts is
intended to trigger users that the transaction description is incomplete and
that the correct account should be selected to replace the Imbalance account
for the transaction.  In the majority of cases the transfer account is going
to be an Income or Expense account. Where a transfer account is specified
though, the label has to have been previously  mapped onto an internal
account or a new internal account created and specified for it to be
imported. The transaction record to be imported must specify a primary
account label which is usually an asset or liability account and that label
has to be mapped to an internal asset/liability account otherwise it does
not know where to import it to. 

You could have an option whereby if a matching account label does not exist
for the primary account for a transaction, GnuCash creates an account with
the name. In the majority of cases for imported transactions, the primary 
account is going to be an asset or liability account. However, account
structures in accounting have a structure which reflects how the business
(even where it is simply personal accounting) operates and is financed and
the asset and liability account structures are fairly strictly defined by
the assets and liabilities you actually have. I would not want to have
myaccounting program randomly creating new accounts in these categories
every time it came across a label which had not been assigned to an existing
internal account and I suspect that after experiencing it you may not
either.

A first time user new to accounting is always going to have trouble working
out what goes where and why  which is why the GnuCash guide has a very brief
introduction to accounting basics but nothing really replaces making
mistakes.  Unfortunately most of us don't consult the documentation until we
strike a problem, me included. The beauty of GnuCash is that if you do stuff
it up you can at least correct it once your knowledge has built up.



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David Cousens
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