[GNC] Are accountants happy with CVS exports?

[Robert Heller]

At Thu, 5 Jan 2023 11:52:04 -0500 stepbystepfarm at comcast.net wrote:

> 
> This discussion merits a comment.
> 
> ALL .csv means is an indication that the data is in a file of "records" 
> each of which contains data fields separated by commas. It does not mean 
> ANYTHING about what the fields mean (what sort of data is there) or what 
> is the logical order of the fields.

Does gnucash include a "header row"?  If so, this will provide a level of 
"documentation" of what the data is.

> 
> Thus a record with the data  A,BAC,WYZ,LMNOP  would be a perfectly well 
> ordered record with four fields separated by commas. But it would have 
> no meaning to your accountant.
> 
> So what we are really talking about "would an accountant be happy with 
> data exported from gnucash in .csv (with the fields that gmucash puts 
> into these records, in the order in which gnucash puts them, etc.). For 
> example, the data that the accountant want might be there but not in the 
> order expected by his or her software.
> 
> << those of you using a 'nix OS should be able to write a shell script 
> to rearrange the order --Note that this cannot be a responsibility of 
> gnucash to :get the order right" as no way to know what order is 
> required. AFAIK there is no accepted standard << but if there were, then 
> a request "make the export/imports of gnucash match this published 
> standard" would be a legitimate request >>

I would expect that the .csv file could be imported in a "modern" spreadsheet
program (Excel, localc, etc.) by the accountant. If there is a header row, the
columns would be labeled. I expect most modern spreadsheet programs can
re-order columns.

> 
> 
> Michael D Novack
> 
> 
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