Hello!

I read the manual and quite some forum posts, but I still can't figure out what the best next step would be.

What I have done:

- I have all my accounts set up (checking, saving, investments).
- I imported their OFX files. All accounts have a minimum of 2 years worth of transaction data.
- Everything is in the ledgers. Showing up as red colored transactions with exclamation marks next to them. The payee list is filled with numerous entries, including myself in different variations.

What I want to do is:

- Show all the transfers between my accounts correctly. But how should I enter those? Through the payee (my own name + separate bank account) or through some sort of automatical matching functionality?
- I want to setup scheduled transfers between the accounts.
- I want to assign categories to most transactions.

The biggest issue for me is understanding if and how I can tackle this process in bulk. I saw that I can match transactions after I have entered an account in the "transfer" field. But that was just 1 transaction. Do I have to do this for all matching transaction separately.

Any help would be appreciated! I have the feeling that for the first time in my life I have the possibility of getting some good insight in my (personal) "accounting", but I am missing the last pieces to make it work.

Thanks in advance!

Showing up as red colored transactions with exclamation marks next to them. The payee list is filled with numerous entries, including myself in different variations.

That means, the transaction does not fulfill the requirements for double-entry book-keeping. Hovering over the exclamation mark icon will provide additional information about the problem. As a first guess, I would think the category for those transactions shows up as *** UNASSIGNED ***, but that is a guess and it could be completely wrong.

want to assign categories to most transactions.

Well, you have to assign categories to all transactions (requirement of double-entry book-keeping).

I want to setup scheduled transfers between the accounts.

That will be easy, once the other problems are straightened out

The biggest issue for me is understanding if and how I can tackle this process in bulk.

In the following, I assume that you have imported two accounts A and B and in both you have one half of the transfers. This can be the case, if your OFX data does not contain information about the other respective account. Here's what you can do:

• Open the ledger of account B
• Select all transactions that are a transfer to/from account A
• Delete them
• Open the ledger of account A
• Select all transactions that are a transfer to/from account B
• Start editing
• Select account B as category (don't change anything else)
• Save the transaction(s)

That should bring them back into account B. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on your actual situation. But that is how you can mass-assign a category to a set of transactions.

In case your OFX data contains a reference to the other account, make sure the name of the account matches, delete all transactions in one account and re-import it. That could also match the transactions. Again, much depends on the details of your OFX data.

Just make sure to have backups of your data before you start playing/messing around as mentioned above.

Hope that helps to get you going.

Thank you for the quick response!

ipwizard wrote:Showing up as red colored transactions with exclamation marks next to them. The payee list is filled with numerous entries, including myself in different variations.

That means, the transaction does not fulfill the requirements for double-entry book-keeping. Hovering over the exclamation mark icon will provide additional information about the problem. As a first guess, I would think the category for those transactions shows up as *** UNASSIGNED ***, but that is a guess and it could be completely wrong.

That is correct. It is showing up as *** UNASSIGNED ***.

ipwizard wrote:want to assign categories to most transactions.

Well, you have to assign categories to all transactions (requirement of double-entry book-keeping).

If I want to bulk process most transactions should I first group them under the payee section first? Will that help in bulk selecting the transactions? Or should I just search for them in the ledger?

ipwizard wrote:Select account B as category (don't change anything else)
Save the transaction(s)
That should bring them back into account B. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on your actual situation. But that is how you can mass-assign a category to a set of transactions.

The OFX files are of one account per file.
When I bulk edit the transactions should I mark them as transfer as well (as in deposit/transfer/withdrawl)? Because when I edit transaction the "Category" field only shows in the tabs Deposit and Withdrawl of the transaction details. When I change it to the tab "Transfer" the "Category" field changes to "Transfer to".

I will make a backup!

jk wrote:

ipwizard wrote:want to assign categories to most transactions.

Well, you have to assign categories to all transactions (requirement of double-entry book-keeping).

If I want to bulk process most transactions should I first group them under the payee section first? Will that help in bulk selecting the transactions? Or should I just search for them in the ledger?

That may make selecting them in the ledger easier. You can use the search bar at the top by entering the payee name there and Ctrl+A to select all transactions at once. My understanding of grouping is that you want to combine different variations of a payee in to one. You can do so by deleting a (false) payee and if it has transactions assigned you will be asked to select another (the correct one) payee to which those will be assigned. If you mean something else by grouping, please explain.

jk wrote:

ipwizard wrote:Select account B as category (don't change anything else)
Save the transaction(s)
That should bring them back into account B. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on your actual situation. But that is how you can mass-assign a category to a set of transactions.

The OFX files are of one account per file.
When I bulk edit the transactions should I mark them as transfer as well (as in deposit/transfer/withdrawl)? Because when I edit transaction the "Category" field only shows in the tabs Deposit and Withdrawl of the transaction details. When I change it to the tab "Transfer" the "Category" field changes to "Transfer to".

No need to do that. Simply start entering the account name and select it from the drop-down box. That should take care of the tab to switch to Transfer. KMyMoney detects the type Transfer or Deposit/Withdrawal by looking at the account/category.

ipwizard wrote:That may make selecting them in the ledger easier. You can use the search bar at the top by entering the payee name there and Ctrl+A to select all transactions at once. My understanding of grouping is that you want to combine different variations of a payee in to one. You can do so by deleting a (false) payee and if it has transactions assigned you will be asked to select another (the correct one) payee to which those will be assigned. If you mean something else by grouping, please explain.

That is what I meant. I assume that if I add a category to a payee in the payee overview that they will be automatically added after future imports.
Just looking for a process that will make it easier for myself in the future.

ipwizard wrote:No need to do that. Simply start entering the account name and select it from the drop-down box. That should take care of the tab to switch to Transfer. KMyMoney detects the type Transfer or Deposit/Withdrawal by looking at the account/category.

Clear. Just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something in the instruction you gave. I am on it now. Thanks again!

jk wrote:I assume that if I add a category to a payee in the payee overview that they will be automatically added after future imports. Just looking for a process that will make it easier for myself in the future.

That is one way of doing it. Another one is using scheduled transactions. During import, KMyMoney checks for scheduled transactions and automatically assigns them with all their categories. I use this e.g. for my paycheck that comes as a single net-payment into my account and I have a schedule with the gross amount and all the deductions. No manual intervention unless one of the figure changes.

Also, KMyMoney takes a look at historic transactions for the same payee and assigns categories (depending on the amount). After a while of usage you get used to it. I don't know when I entered the last transaction manually. Assigning a category now and then is OK but other than that most of the transactions downloaded from my banks (using direct access with HBCI and CSV downloads) works automagically.

I got completely stuck on the following...

I needed to add one more account. Got the .OFX for it and it imported just fine (all transactions showing). However it seemed that there was 1 transaction missing, therefore I started to troubleshoot. Thought it had to do with the opening date on the account.

I deleted the account and started the import again. Did not work. "No transactions imported".

Started again from the backup .KMY file. Created a new account again. Imported the .OFX: 169 transactions imported. However 0 are showing in the ledger.

Restarted KmyMoney again. Same result. Restarted the PC. Same result.

I can't figure out what is going on! I managed to import it once just fine. After that it is either showing 169 transactions imported, but showing 0. Or it says "no transaction imported".

Don't want to continue with the rest now, because if it has to do with the .kmy file I might have to do it all again.

Please help...

Well, this in fact sounds really strange and I have no immediate explanation nor a solution.

I scanned the recent entries of this thread but did not find any indication of the version of KMyMoney nor the operating system you are using. This would be the most important piece of information to have before starting to troubleshoot this specific problem.

It is Version 5.0.80-b075d669c,
Windows 10, 64bit.

The weirdest thing is that it imported once just fine. After that it once or twice said it imported (in a backup file for testing), but not showing any transactions nor showing a balance.
At the moment it is showing "No new transactions imported" every single time.
I created new accounts during the initial import of the .OFX,
I tried creating the account first and then importing the transactions (so I could select the account from the drop-down),
I tried adding the transactions to another account

All resulting in the same result: "No new transactions imported".

My next step would be to update KmyMoney to a newer build to see if that helps. Apart from that I have no clue what to do differently...

I managed to convert the .OFX file to a .QIF file and that imported the transactions again.

I deleted the transactions and imported the .OFX again. That worked again!

This leaves me with just as much ???, but with greater satisfaction. Going back to my current .KMY file and will go from there.
Without further follow up consider this particular issue solved.

I am back to the initial challenge of the beginning of this thread.