Re: duplicate internal transfers -- I guess would be difficult in any software. Consider the following transactions, *all* in the same book -- and *all* accounts (bank chequing, savings1, savings2) are selected for QIF exports.
10/01/20 Save $100 Chequing -$100 Savings1 +$100 10/01/20 Save $100 Chequing -$100 Savings1 +$20 Savings2 +$80 10/01/20 Save $100 Chequing -$100 Savings2 +$100 The QIF will have: chequing 10/01/20 -100 save $100 10/01/20 -100 save $100 10/01/20 -100 save $100 savings1 10/01/20 +20 save $100 10/01/20 +100 save $100 savings2 10/01/20 +80 save $100 10/01/20 +100 save $100 And somewhere internal *must* contain logic to marry up the 7 splits into 3 separate transactions *without* an unique transaction_ID. I don't think it's possible to make one safely. The easy answer is to export each account into a separate QIF, and import piecemeal. i.e. after importing chequing.qif, import savings1.qif and match the transactions manually, then savings2.qif. Even then I'm not 100% sure the gnucash QIF importer or any other software can handle this safely. On Sat, 22 Feb 2020 at 19:03, James Peterson <l...@austin.rr.com> wrote: > I'm seeing generic problems with QIF importing with > both gnucash and Kmymoney and I think skrooge too, > that can't handle the semantics of my QIF file. For > example with splits and unassigned categories and > such. Also, Quicken seems to assume an unnamed cash > balance for investment accounts as the source and > destination for buy/sell/interest/dividends, which > no one seems to handle properly. > > So I'm currently planning to write a QIF to QIF > program that will "clean up" and "simplify" these > sorts of things. It can create a named account for > the anonymous cash balance (which seems to be what > the brokerages are doing anyway), delete zero balance > and empty lines, and output a new QIF that doesn't > have these problems. Don't know what I can do about > duplicate internal transfers -- that's sort of the > core of double-entry bookkeeping. > > I started by looking in github for "QIF file" and > have 130 different programs which take in or produce > QIF files, so I'll review those first, although most > of those seem to be in Python, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, ... > > jim > > > > On Sat, 2020-02-22 at 05:15 +0000, Christopher Lam wrote: > > Thank you, very useful. > > > > We can already try fix the empty-category issue to allow importing, but > is > > likely to cause other problems. > > > > The internal transfers issue is much more difficult. The QIF importer > > attempts to detect duplicates whereby the datafile already has QIF > > transactions, but not for internal transfers. Hence some more data files > > (e.g. internal transfers between 3 accounts all in QIF, or between 3 > > accounts whereby 2 are in QIF etc) are still useful. > > > > C > > > > On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 at 18:27, James Peterson <l...@austin.rr.com> wrote: > > > This second QIF file illustrates the original problem I had -- > > > it simply "Failed" with no errors or warnings or messages > > > of any kind (that I can find). Adding the debug print to > > > print each transaction as it is processed in qif-to-gnc.scm > > > showed it was a transaction with no category listed. > > > > > > So this QIF file, test2.QIF, picks up from the previous > > > test1 -- two accounts, checking and credit card, the same > > > payment from checking to the credit card, but now I actually > > > try to buy something with my $400. > > > > > > First I spend $100 at Fry's for a Flash Drive, but give no > > > category at all. So this is a simple transaction with no > > > category. > > > > > > Then I buy two CDs at Best Buy, using a split transaction. > > > The split transaction as a whole has a category (Music, as > > > a sub-category of Entertainment), but within the split, I > > > don't give an additional category, so you get the "S" > > > line with no information at all -- just S on a line by itself. > > > > > > To really make it complicated, we have the two purchases > > > I thought I made (Beatles and Adele) (both without categories) > > > and then I remembered another Dr. Demento CD. Quicken, when it > > > does Split transactions, opens up a window for the Split with > > > 30 lines (16 showing and you can scroll down for the next > > > 14). Each line has a Category (S), Memo (E), and Amount ($) > > > The Beatles was on line 1, the Adele on line 2, then two blank > > > lines and the Dr.Demento on line 5, so you have two entries > > > with no category, no memo, and $0.00 for the amount. > > > > > > gnucash can't load this file at all, but I suspect that if > > > you fix the "Failed" on the import, the amounts would still > > > be all screwed up. > > > > > > I don't know how to take screen shots on a Windows 10 system, > > > but the QIF files is all you should need. > > > > > > I hope these test cases help. Now I have to go back and try > > > to repair my quicken files. One of the most maddening things > > > about Quicken is that there is no journal of what I've done. > > > If you are typing in January, but forget the new year, and enter > > > a transaction, it will immediately be sorted by date and > > > disappear from view -- the view is still at the end of the > > > account, but the just entered transaction is way back in > > > January of the previous year. And woe betide you if your > > > fat fingers mess up the year entirely and you don't even > > > know what year you typed -- the transaction is safely > > > sorted back into 2001 or someplace. And everything is > > > automatically updated, on disk, in memory. There is no > > > undo, no trace of what you did. I seem to have put the > > > wrong category into one of my previously missing categories > > > from back in 1985 and now I have accounts that should be > > > zeroed out and closed that have $-36K and $-7K balances > > > which I need to fix. At least I can diff the QIF files > > > to see how they changed in the last few days. > > > > > > > > > jim > > > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 2020-02-21 at 07:09 +0800, Christopher Lam wrote: > > > > Sorry to see you go. > > > > > > > > You have, in one swoop, uncovered 3 issues: > > > > > > > > 1. S field being empty is not processed correctly. It would still be > > > nice if > > > > you could attach some screenshots from quicken, and a tiny qif. > > > > > > > > 2. Duplicated transactions. This happens because I think qif is not > > > limited > > > > to 1 account. If it has more than 1 account and there are internal > > > > transactions, qif importer cannot reliably detect those because the > > > > specification, unlike ofx, does not have a unique transaction ID. Not > > > sure > > > > whether KMyMoney handles this well. Again a small test case is still > > > welcome > > > > to try fix this, including quicken screenshots. > > > > > > > > 3. Importing stock or multi currency transactions is difficult. The > > > importer > > > > does try to handle it. Ditto test case and screenshots. > > > > > > > > Lastly someone else said gnuc 3.1 managed to import; may be worth > > > trying? > > > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 21 Feb 2020, 1:46 am James Peterson, <l...@austin.rr.com> > wrote: > > > > > I appreciate your responses to my postings -- you really helped > > > > > me find why gnucash did not like my particular QIF file. > > > > > > > > > > But once I got past that, it's clear that gnucash is badly > > > > > mangling the meaning of the transactions I have. I end up > > > > > with an overall balance of -2 million. And my investment accounts > > > > > (like my IRA) with multiple mutual funds are particularly > > > > > mangled. Plus treating categories as accounts makes it hard > > > > > to concentrate on just the account balances. And it seems that > > > > > when I write a check from my checking account to Discover > > > > > to cover my balance, it ends up being creditted twice, so > > > > > instead of a zero balance, I end up knowing that I paid $518K > > > > > over the past 27 years. While I want to be able to find that > > > > > out (maybe), it's not something I need to know all the time. > > > > > (I realize this is a problem of some kind with double entry > > > > > bookkeeping, but that means everything like this is probably > > > > > wrong.) > > > > > > > > > > So gnucash does not look like a suitable replacement for > > > > > my use of Quicken. KMyMoney seems to be closer to being > > > > > correct, so I'm going to see if I can fix the problems I'm > > > > > running into with that, and see if that works better. > > > > > > > > > > jim > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, 2020-02-20 at 11:47 +0800, Christopher Lam wrote: > > > > > > Qif importer does have special handling for empty categories. > > > Changing > > > > > this > > > > > > is likely to break things elsewhere though. > > > > > > > > > > > > It would be useful to attach the minimal qif file from selective > qif > > > > > export > > > > > > from quicken, and insert screenshots from quicken too. Maybe best > > > file > > > > > bug > > > > > > in Bugzilla. > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
