You will find it useful to have a basic account structure already in place but you can usually add extra accounts as you need then. I think the dialogue which comes up when you select an account has a new account button but GnuCash's windows are not generally modal so you can usually go back to the Accounts tab on the main window and create the account in the account tree heirarchy and then swap back to the window you were working on to use it.
If you are getting 4 entries for each column it sounds as though you may have too many columns assigned. Iusually set the base account in the import setup window in the field labelled Account at the top right. This sets the account the first split or entry of the transaction will be applied to. I usually don't specify a transfer account in the Import setup step and only set the Date Description and Deposit columns and ignore any others. The usual situation is you are importing transactions from a single account ie a check or savings account in which one split(entry) of the transaction affects that account and the second split of the transaction will debit or credit the appropriate expense or income account respectively. This second entry is quite often referred to as the transfer account in the documentation and here on the list. The next window that comes up is the import matcher. It is used for both CSV and OFX imports. QIF imports usually specify both accounts or an account and an expense category which can be matched to an account so the matcher is not used with QIF import s(here you can map the imported account names onto GnuCash account names). This matches records to Expense and Income or other accounts by matching dates within a range, the description field and the amount. If you have not imported anything before the rows will come up in a yellow background. This indicates that the record is to be added to the accounts (A checkbox checked) and a transfer account has to be specified for the transaction. Double clicking on the row will bring up an account selection dialog which you can use to select the appropriate income or expense or other account. Once you have selected the account the row will come up with a green backgoround. If the row comes up in red background it means that the record has been flagged not to be imported. If the R checkbox is checked it matches an exising record. If the U checkbox is checked, it matches an existing record but some detail may be different and it will update the record. A will be unchecked. ALl the checkboxes may be unchecked if GnuCash is not able to decide whether it matches an existing transaction well enough to be reconciled(R) or updateable (U). All of these checkboxes may be overridden. If a U or R is checked if you double click on the row it will bring up a dialog which allows you to examine the match detail and decide whether it really does match a transaction that exists or matches but has to update some detail. ( This can occur if you use scheduled transactions which might have a generic amount but the actual amount varies). If you decide the record doesnt match ( the matcher is not perfect) or doesnt need to be updated, you can uncheck the U or R boxes as appropriate and check the A checkbox. You can then assign a transfer account if it comes up with a yellow background. If GnuCash decides the record contains enough matching information in the description field to identify which account should be assigned as the transfer account, the row will come up with a green background indicating the record is ready to import. It will identify the transfer account it has decided is appropriate in the Info field. If you wish to assign another account, double click on the row to bring up the account selection dialog and select an appropriate account. The selection dialogue has a New Account button if there is not an appropriate existing account to assign the transaction to. Again once you have assigned the transfer account the row will show up with a green backgound. Once you have processed all rows and they are flagged as either to be imported( green) or not imported (red) and there are no yellow rows, click on the Apply button to import them. Using the importer can be difficult if you don't have a very good understanding of the way GnuCash handles transactions and the basics of the double entry system. The GnuCash tutorial and concepts guide covers this https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_basics.html. The help manual https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/help.html is more process oriented. The CSV importer as well as handling the case of importing records form a bank account can also handle importing quite complex multi-split transaction records exported from GnuCash so there are a lot of options you don't need for the import of bank records. If your bank does supply records in OFX format (and they implement the OFX format correctly) it is generally easier to import records in OFX as it has a well defined format. Gnucash can cope with the date records having either a"/" or "-" as the separator automatically . What you need to set is the order in which day month and year are presented. Don't give up too easily. Once you get the hang of it, it works well. I think I have just largely rewritten the documentation so I will be able to cut and paste into the old version. Unless your data file has a lot of existing transactions in it it may be easier to create a new file, export the account structure from the old file and reimport it into the new file and start from scratch. If you do have a lot of existing transactions it will be easier to delete the existing transactions and then redo the import. Unfortunately that is a one by one operation. David Cousens ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
