Import FilesSkrooge is able to import files from other financial applications or from your bank. So, whether you are migrating from another application, or simply do not want to go through the hassle of manually entering your transactions, Skrooge has a quick-start option for this.
One of the following formats may be used:
AFB120: A French standard.
CSV: Comma Separated Value. Though not strictly a financial format, it is quite often available as an export format from banks or other applications, mostly because it is so easy to use in a spreadsheet.
GnuCash: Format of the GnuCash application. If you want to migrate from this application, this is the recommended format to use.
Grisbi: Format of the Grisbi application. If you want to migrate from this application, this is the recommended format to use.
Homebank: Format of the Homebank application. If you want to migrate from this application, this is the recommended format to use.
Kmymoney: Format of the Kmymoney application. If you want to migrate from this application, this is the recommended format to use.
MT940: An international standard defined by SWIFT.
Microsoft® Money: Format of the Microsoft® Money application. If you want to migrate from this application, this is the recommended format to use.
Money Manager Ex: Format of the Money Manager Ex application. If you want to migrate from this application, this is the recommended format to use.
OFX: Open Financial eXchange. It is a well defined and documented format, that Skrooge imports using a third party library (libofx). This is the recommended format for imports.
QFX: QFX is a customization of OFX from the commercial software Quicken™.
QIF: Quicken™ Import File. Maybe the most common financial file format. However, it has some rather limitations, like not giving the unit for transaction, or no strict date formatting.
IIF: Intuit™ Interchange Format used by QuickBooks™.
SKG: This is useful for merging two Skrooge documents
PDF: This allows to create the transaction from a PDF invoice. The invoice is also associated to the transaction as a property. Read the How to if you want to know how to extract information from an invoice not yet supported.
Backend: Skrooge can also import transactions by using a backend. For the moment, the three following backends can be used:
weboob: By using this backend you can import all transactions from all your banks in only one click. For that, you just have to install weboob and activate the corresponding backend from settings.
weboob_coming: By using this backend you can import all coming transactions from all your banks with one click. This can be used for cards with deferred debit. For that, you just have to install weboob and activate the corresponding backend from settings.
aqbanking: By using this backend you can import all transactions from all your banks in one click. For that, you just have to install and configure aqbanking-cli.
Tip
If you do not want to store your bank passwords in the configuration file of WEBOOB, you can do so using the following method:
Add passwords for each bank by doing “kwallet-query -f Weboob kdewallet -w m_bank_name”
Edit the file “~/.config/weboob/backends” in your favorite text editor
Replace in the config file “password = my_password” by “password = `kwallet-query -f Weboob kdewallet -r m_bank_name `”
Since CSV has no strictly defined format, there is no way for Skrooge to know where it is supposed to find dates, categories, values, etc. For this reason, Skrooge expects your CSV file to contain some headers indicating what each column is used for. The file must contain at least the columns "Date" and "Amount".
You may manually define how the file is set up (i.e. ignoring the headers in the file) by setting them in the application's settings ( → ), in the Import / Export section.
One of the principles of Skrooge is to avoid multiple wizards or dialog boxes. This is especially true for imports, where other applications require much information from the user. When selecting → , you will be asked to select the files (multiple file imports are permitted), and that is all the information that is required. Behind the scenes, Skrooge will find the file format and apply the relevant import mode.
One thing that might surprise you is that you won't be asked which account the transactions should be imported into. That is because Skrooge will read the account number in the file, and will associate imported transactions to that account.
If no account exists with this account number, or if the file does not contain this information, Skrooge will use the file name as the account number.
If you create a property named “alias” on the account, Skrooge will try to match the value of the property to find the most appropriated account.
If there is still no account with that number, Skrooge will create a new account having the filename as the account number, and import all transactions in that account. You will then be free to either rename the account, perform a mass update, or use Search & Process to associate imported transactions to an existing account.
If no unit is specified in the imported file (which is often the case for QIF and CSV formats), Skrooge will assume the unit is your primary currency. If this was not the case, use the Search & Process function to correct.
Sometimes, the input files will not have dates formatted as per your country's customs (it may happen in QIF or CSV, OFX has an imposed date format). Skrooge will do its best to detect the format. If this doesn't work as expected, you can force the date format in the application's settings.
Imported Transactions have a specific status. Right after import, they are considered as "Imported, not yet validated". The idea here is that you may want to check if the import went as expected, so you need to identify those transactions quickly. As per default settings, those transactions will also appear in blue.
Tip
If you do not want this behaviour, you can set the option Automatic Validation after Import in the application's settings.
Tip
The Search & Process function can be automatically launched after import to categorize transactions.
There are some cases where you have manually entered a transaction, but also imported it from your bank. In such cases, the transaction will appear twice in the list.
You may merge these two transactions by selecting them, and select in the contextual menu or the edit menu. This will add all information you manually entered to the imported transaction, and will delete the manually entered transaction.