[GNC] Example of importing Stock transactions from CSV

[Jon Schewe]

David,

I'm using GnuCash 4.11 from FlatPak. I have all of my transactions on
single lines (I've posted samples in this thread). 
I would greatly appreciate someone explaining how to make this work and
I'd be happy to help update the documentation on this.

Jon


On Sun, 2022-08-21 at 09:17 -0500, David Carlson wrote:
> Jon,
> 
> If you are not using some recent 4.x version of GnuCash you may not
> have the latest improvements to the CSV transaction importer.  
> 
> A normal stock purchase or sale transaction has two parts, one, a
> deposit or withdrawal of cash from a brokerage account, the other an
> exchange of the cash for a security at some exchange rate, aka
> price.  For this discussion I will ignore commissions and fees.
> 
> Thus you want to have two CSV lines per transaction.  Also, when
> importing the CSV file, you will need to check the Multi-split box to
> tell GnuCash that is the type of file that you are importing.  Then
> you can assign one line to the security purchase or sale and the
> other to the cash transfer.  You can define fields in each line to
> match the respective lines in a completed transaction as seen in the
> security register.  You only see the price and share details in the
> security register and the cash transfer details can be seen in both
> the security register and the brokerage register.
> 
> I will admit that I have not done that myself, so I cannot provide an
> example for you to follow.  Perhaps another user can provide an
> example.  Good luck.
> 
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2022 at 8:38 AM Jon Schewe <jpschewe at mtu.net> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2022-08-20 at 12:20 -0400, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
> > > On 8/19/2022 10:33 PM, Jon Schewe wrote:
> > > > So I didn't get the CSV import tool to work.
> > > 
> > > Perhaps a reminder on what CSV is and is not.
> > > 
> > > CSV stands for "common separated variables. That means the data
> > is in
> > > the form of a record consisting of a number of fields delineated
> > by 
> > > commas. Which means two important things. The fields (individual
> > data
> > > elements) cannot contain commas but even more important, ORDER
> > > MATTERS.
> > > 
> > > In other words, the record A,B,C,D is not the same a B,A,C,D <<
> > A, B,
> > > C, 
> > > and D being elements of data, names, amounts, etc. >>
> > > 
> > > The CSV data you are importing must not only be in CSV format but
> > the
> > > data must be in the right order AND any data that is null (not
> > > present 
> > > still has its space in the record.
> > > 
> > > Thus if a record was supposed to include A, C, and D  (B is not
> > > relevant 
> > > to this record) it would look like A,,C,D and not A,C,D
> > > 
> > > 
> > > But even the "wrong" examples are in CSV format.
> > > 
> > > 
> > Yes, I know what a CSV file is and how it should be formatted. The
> > problem is not with the format of the file, that is handled by
> > GnuCash
> > just fine. The problem is the mapping of columns in the CSV file to
> > fields in GnuCash. I cannot figure out the correct mapping to get
> > the
> > correct transactions.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I have tried all of the following possible mappings between GnuCash
> > fields and columns in my CSV file. In the end I finally wrote the
> > python script out of frustration of the import CSV transactions not
> > working. I'm hoping that someone on this list understands enough
> > python
> > and the import CSV transactions functionality enough to tell me how
> > to
> > get the mapping correct.
> > 
> > # test 2
> > 
> > Transfer Account - FUND
> > Withdrawal - FUND UNITS
> > Account - Transfer Account
> > Transaction Commodity - Currency 
> > 
> > Shares are correct.
> > Close, need to get the dollars right now
> > 
> > # test 3
> > 
> > Transfer Account - FUND
> > Withdrawal - FUND UNITS
> > Account - Transfer Account
> > Transaction Commodity - Currency 
> > Deposit - AMOUNT
> > 
> > None of the shares or cash lined up.
> > 
> > # test 4
> > 
> > Try swapping withdrawal and deposit
> > 
> > Transfer Account - FUND
> > Deposit - FUND UNITS
> > Account - Transfer Account
> > Transaction Commodity - Currency 
> > Withdrawal - AMOUNT
> > 
> > None of the shares or cash lined up.
> > 
> > # test 5
> > 
> > Transfer Account - FUND
> > Withdrawal - FUND UNITS
> > Account - Transfer Account
> > Transaction Commodity - Currency 
> > price - FUND UNITS
> > 
> > Values don't line up with the price
> > 
> > # test 6
> > 
> > Transfer Account - Transfer Account
> > Deposit - AMOUNT
> > Account - FUND
> > Transaction Commodity - Currency 
> > 
> > Price is right, Shares are the dollars
> > Shares times price equals dollars.
> > 
> > 
> > # test 7
> > 
> > Transfer Account - Transfer Account
> > Account - FUND 
> > Transaction Commodity - Fund Commodity
> > Deposit - FUND UNITS
> > 
> > Nothing is right, couldn't find the account to transfer from and
> > price
> > is 1.
> > 
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