[GNC] QuickBooks to GnuCash Migration Script improvements

[Vivek Gani]

Thanks for checking out the https://github.com/erikmack/qb-escape script!
I'm definitely aware that the script isn't easily accessible to
non-technical folks and has some limitations. That said, how can you and I
ask what opportunities are there:

- Is it technically possible to bundle a migration script as a standalone
program? Or possibly within gnucash or as an extension?

- What are the challenges beyond just the technical to create and maintain
(and market) such a thing? Perhaps a fundraiser could be done?

- Assuming you are trying to attract an audience currently using an
existing tool (such as QuickBooks), is there guidance they're seeking? My
understanding is that CPA firms spend time writing their own documentation
for their clients to use specific software tools (such as QuickBooks) so
their clients can do certain tasks on their own (e.g. quarterly taxes in
USA).


I bring this up knowing the challenges of writing migraters (and keeping
them up-to-date) is a recurring challenge in various open-source spaces
(not just gnucash, for example in plaintextaccounting I'm aware of the
earlier attempt of 'ledgerhub' by the beancount community where there were
some lessons learned - could link to various threads about this if
desired). There's usually a broader challenge between contributors on what
the appropriate coding conventions are on writing importers - where carries
more of a maintainer perspective seeking more structure, and the other
contributor is interested in getting an initial importer done to get their
data in and move on. The current state of code in the Quickbooks-to-GnuCash
importer falls more in the latter - it's a fairly simple script and makes
many assumptions (US-based, reconciled transactions, etc.)

While I don't want to get too deep into my personal politics around
software, I recently tweeted my hope is to pay/support tools that, even if
they're subscription based, at least provide view-only or export options
when the subscription has lapsed - especially if the data is locally stored
on the user's own computer.

To answer your other questions:

>  I thought that GnuCash was now using Python 3 and not Python 2 as the
LWN article states...? There are also points made about piecash and
relational databases that I do not know if how that article portrays it
from August 2017 is still current/accurate...?

I'm thankful for what the original article started, and some of the
confusion is what prompted me to spend time improving the documentation at
https://github.com/erikmack/qb-escape . I'm still rather new to GnuCash and
not sure about the comments in the original article about piecash and
relational database formats.

On Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 9:36 AM Brad Morrison <bradmorrison at sonic.net>
wrote:

> Hi Vivek/all,
>
> That LWN 'Escape from QuickBooks (with data in hand)' article
> (https://lwn.net/Articles/729087/) was great - thanks for sharing! I
> don't know if Jonathan Corbet (or Erik Mack) is on this mailing list,
> but Jonathan is a very clear and helpful technical writer. However, it
> was still difficult for me to read:
>
> Partly it is pretty technical and over my head (I would have to look up
> what 'Python bindings' actually are in order to understand parts of the
> information that was being conveyed, just to give anyone a sense of the
> knowledge base that I am coming from).
>
> Partly it is from August 2017 and I'm not sure how accurate it still is
> - I thought that GnuCash was now using Python 3 and not Python 2 as the
> LWN article states...? There are also points made about piecash and
> relational databases that I do not know if how that article portrays it
> from August 2017 is still current/accurate...?
>
> Partly the whole nature of the article is depressing and disappointing
> in conveying how much work is required to migrate data from the
> proprietary data format that Quickbooks uses into a format that GnuCash
> (or any other free accounting system) can use. I have disliked Intuit
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit) for a long time, but mostly from
> a financial perspective as Intuit is a publicly traded company with a
> market capitalization of about $120 billion USD
> (https://www.google.com/finance/quote/INTU:NASDAQ?window=MAX), yet
> Intuit is not even listed as one of the 287 largest contributors on the
> Open Source Contributors Index (https://opensourceindex.io/). Obviously,
> there has been a lot of effort put into maintaining Intuit's/Quickbooks'
> control of its market share from competitive threats like GnuCash or the
> US IRS' efforts to develop its own open source/free tax preparation
> software
> (
> https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-the-government-from-offering-free-online-tax-filing-thank-turbotax).
>
>
>
> With how difficult it seems to be to export data out of Quickbooks, I
> can understand why there do not appear to be any professional
> bookkeepers in the United States that work with GnuCash, even just as an
> option (based on the lack of response to Bob Treumann's ask on this list
> on March 1, 2023). I don't know how many GnuCash users there are that
> started with QB and were able to successfully migrate their data to
> GnuCash (?), but after trying to read that LWN article, I'm guessing
> that most GnuCash users either migrated their data 'manually' or just
> started fresh with GnuCash...? Ouch!
>
> Still it is super helpful to even understand the issues involved more
> fully - thanks again!
>
> Brad
>
>
> On 3/22/23 08:05, Vivek Gani wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I recently made some improvements to the migrations scripts that might
> help
> > those trying to migrate from Quickbooks to GnuCash:
> > https://github.com/erikmack/qb-escape
> >
> >
> > Even if you're not using GnuCash the instructions for Quickbooks data
> > export might be helpful if you're trying to have a backup of data in a
> way
> > that's more accessible (i.e. for use in Excel, Libreoffice, etc.)
> >
> >
> > If anyone has time available, I think a possible improvement would be to
> > find a way to make a packaged 'download and run' migration tool so
> > non-technical folks can have an easier path for migrating data to gnucash
> > without trying to install gnucash with python bindings, etc.. This might
> be
> > possible with pyinstaller though the complicated part will likely be
> trying
> > to also bundle a gnucash with python bindings setup within there too, and
> > for each different operating system.
> >
> > Linkbacks - these scripts were based on the LWN article 'Escape from
> > Quickbooks (with data in hand)' -https://lwn.net/Articles/729087/
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