[GNC] CSV Import Problem

[David Cousens]

Charles,

If you look at the Withdrawal and Deposit columns in the Import Wizard, you will
notice that the entries in the Withdrawal column  are negative while those in
the Deposit column are positive quantities. 

GnuCash can import data in a single column format where both the Withdrawal and
Deposit Amounts are in the same colum but they have different signs. Where they
are separate columns for the Withdrawals and Deposits from an account GnuCash
reasonably expects both columns to be positive quantities. 

This is generally the default format for a bank which will normally record
deposits to your bank account as Credits and withdrawals fromn your account as
Debits. This is because the bank treats your accounmt in their hands as a
liability to them, whereas in your accounts it is an asset and debit and credit
amounts are normally recorded in accounting practice as positive quantities.

What has happened is that when GnuCash has imported the data, it has treated
both the Withdrawal and Deposit column entries as Debit entries to the account
in GnuCash which is why you have the incorrect positive balance.

To fix this you can either change the negative quantities in the Withdrawal
column to positive numbers and then try re importing or you can combine the
numbers in those two columns into a single column into a single column and
retain the signs. 

If you create a single column assigning the Deposit header to that column should
give you a correct import. If it doesn't give you the correct balance then you
may need to assign the Withdrawal headerbut it has always worked for me
assigning the Deposit header.


David Cousens


On Thu, 2022-09-15 at 16:12 +1000, cavery at bigpond.net.au wrote:
> Hello David,
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for responding and I appreciate your assistance.
> 
>  
> 
> I took your advice and reduce the CSV file down from 304 transactions and a
> large number of accounts to just one account and 21 transaction.  I have
> attached this CSV file to this email.  Below you will see the import mapping
> in GNUcash.
> 
>  
> 
> The account number 2000 is a current asset bank account in GNUcash and after
> the CSV import the balance should be zero dollars.  I have attached a print of
> account 2000 transaction file and you will see the transaction total is
> $176,836.38 and the account total is $177,661.76 and should be zero. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Screen shots of the mapping for the CSV file import:
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> Charles Avery
> 
>  
> 
> Mob: 0404 242 278
> 
>  
> 
> From: David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> 
> Sent: Wednesday, 14 September 2022 10:56 PM
> To: cavery at bigpond.net.au
> Cc: mailman-request at gnucash.org; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: [GNC] CSV Import Problem
> 
>  
> 
> There is a huge amount of flexibility in the CSV importer, and it has been
> working well for a long time.
> 
>  
> 
> It is far more likely that there is an error in your configuration or the
> source file.  Did you start with a small test file with just enough
> transactions to verify that your configuration is doing what you expect?  I am
> not familiar with Moneyspire so I don't know if you have many accounts,
> perhaps a mix of assets and liabilities that could provide further
> complication.
> 
>  
> 
> We would need more specific details to help you further.
> 
>  
> 
> On Wed, Sep 14, 2022 at 6:05 AM
> <cavery at bigpond.net.au <mailto:cavery at bigpond.net.au> > wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> I am running GNUcash version 4.11 on Windows 11.
> 
> 
> 
> I have created a CSV file from Moneyspire and I want to import this into
> GNUcash however many of the credits to the bank accounts are treated as
> debits and debits treated as credits but not always.  I have inspected the
> CSV file with Excel and also Wordpad and it looks fine.  It would appear
> GNUcash has a problem with CSV files.
> 
> 
> 
> Regards
> 
> Charles Avery
> 
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