QuickBooks to GnuCash
Posted on September 9, 2006
9 Comments
In a comment on yesterday’s post, Vox assures me that I can get my QuickBooks data to GnuCash. It seemed that I was at the put-up or shut-up spot, so I took the easy way out and installed GnuCash on my little Xubuntu laptop to have a look. I learned a few things.
- apt-get install rocks. I’ve been saying that for months now, but every time I use the apt system I smile.
- GnuCash is… well, let’s call it utilitarian. That sounds much more polite than “fugly”, don’t you think? Frankly, as long as it is functional I don’t much care. And surely it’ll run faster than QB with all that glitz it has.
- Try a search on migrating QuickBooks to GnuCash. You’ll learn that you have fallen into some prime territory for spam blogs. Holy cow, what a waste of time that search was.
- I don’t see anything in GnuCash that gives me the impression that the QB migration is simple. It does offer to import QFX/OFX or QIF files. Pity that my QuickBooks doesn’t offer to export this formats. Clearly, I have to figure out a way to search the ‘net without getting bogged down in spam blogs again.
- The only reference of QuickBooks in the GnuCash wiki is the wish-item I mentioned yesterday…
At the moment, I’m not seeing butterflies and rainbows at the end of this quest.
I will admit that after poking around a bit, it does appear that most, if not all, of my needs are met in the current version of GnuCash. I’d have to adapt a bit, but it sure looks like it’d get the job done. If I can get past this import thing.
Tags: GnuCash, linux, open-source, QuickBooks
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9 Responses to “QuickBooks to GnuCash”
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http://www.google.com/search?q=quickbook+export+qfx&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
Look at the first link in that search…that’s your solution
that PDF? Nope. It’s about getting OFX out of their app.
Of course…and once you have an OFX you can import it into GnuCash, AFAIK. That’s how you move from one to the other…at least that’s my guess.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. The PDF is about getting OFX out of a 3rd Party app into QuickBooks.
I’m not finding a way to get OFX out of my QB 2004 Pro. I can do IIF though, whatever that is…
I’m embarking on a similar quest, it takes a lot of manual work on me but it’ll pay.
I’m using QuickBooks SDK + QuickBooks Web Connector to import my data into my “app” (whatever this app is).
In theory, and actually in practice, I can read (even write) the Quickbooks data with relative ease.
In fact, I can just dump any interesting data into QBXML file format (which is easier to parse than QuickBooks binary format) and convert it to anything.
I’m currently working on it for my own work-in-progress app… Kinda like QuickBooks/GnuCash but web-based.
I’m also thinking of doing it to GnuCash too, as I probably dump the app and just use GnuCash. That possibility is quite interesting, but now the irony: I need to know GnuCash’s file format (duh!)
If you make any progress on that GnuCash conversion, I’d love to hear about it!
Here’s what I intend to do:
1)Borrow a friend’s computer with latest QuickBooks Version. (These export to QIF).
2) Use it temporarily to transfer my old version file to QIF;
3)Import the QIF file into GnuCash.
Steve
Steve - send updates! I’d be curious to hear how this works.
I wasn’t aware latest versions of QB have QIF export… about time.
Oh Dear,
My friend’s Quickbooks 2004 (AUS) tried to open my previous v7.0 version & sent me a message like “the user of the current file hasn’t upgraded.” (ie send more money).
Meanwhile this Feisty 64 bit machine has wings, while my XP in the corner is sending me malware alerts.
I think it might mean a productivity boost to just start using GnuCash. It will mean creating all my accounts afresh in GnuCash with a “brought forward” balance., Occasionally going back to Quickbooks for older records.