Finally arrived from Quicken. Some Questions
Thomas Baumgart
thb at net-bembel.de
Mon Oct 26 12:32:14 GMT 2026
My comments inline below
On Montag, 26. Oktober 2026 03:45:55 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit Dada Krpasundarananda via KMyMoney wrote:
> Hello Thomas,
>
> Thank you for the quick and clear answers.
>
> Columns: I'm on version 5.2.70-da5718809. [Right-clicking the column
> header doesn't show a column menu for me.]
da5718809 is dated July 4 but the separate column was only added July 24, 2026
(see https://invent.kde.org/office/kmymoney/-/merge_requests/394).
That's why you don't have it.
> As a new user I found the column name "Detail" confusing. It shows the
> category, which is what the field is called when entering a transaction.
> Is there a reason it's called Detail? And is it helpful for you if I
> report small things like this, as a new user coming from Quicken?
The detail column contains the payee, the category and the memo unless you
select a separate column for payee and/or memo.
> About the conversion: I'm happy to share how it was done. My file had 16
> years of data from Quicken Deluxe 2013, 89 accounts and about 33,000
> transactions, in MXN, USD, EUR and AUD. Here is how it worked:
>
> * I exported everything from Quicken as a single QIF file and together
> with an income/expense report I gave this to my accounting Grok Bot.
> Below is it's answer:
> * A script split it by account and gave every transaction a stable
> unique ID, since Quicken 2013 still didn't use transaction ids. It
> was built from the account, date, amount, payee and order in the
> register.
> * Transfers between accounts appear twice in a QIF, once in each
> account. The script paired the two sides into a single transaction,
> which matched about 16,400 pairs, and flagged the few it couldn't match.
> * Categories and subcategories were rebuilt as KMyMoney accounts, and
> account currencies were set by hand, with fixed exchange rates. [I
> prefer it like that]
> * The .kmy file was then written directly as XML, and a check script
> compared every account balance and the yearly income and expense
> totals against Quicken reports. All 89 balances matched to the cent.
> * The scripts are plain Python. I'd be glad to clean them up and
> contribute them if they're useful to others.
I think yes. With a little explanation on how to use them (like above)
this seems to be very useful as a migration guide from Quicken.
> Now me again:
> About AI: I'm a computer engineer by training (1980s), but I haven't
> really programmed since, except now doing several quite big projects
> with AI, this has been a very good experience and is only getting better
> and fast. I started with Grok then switched to Grok CLI and did several
> smaller projects and then a bigger one. Then I found that Claude was
> better and switched to Claude CLI, but since a month Grok was solving,
> with ease, all the problems that Claude had trouble with, so I switched
> back, now I switched to Grok bots which is like having 14 (and counting)
> employees. Kind of blown away what it can do!
>
> Well, to get back on topic, I'll make sure I understand and can explain
> anything I submit. The AI does also quite a good job documenting. So
> yes, if you like those suggestions (2 - 4) I'll give it a go. I'll
> probably do it in any case but it would be nice if others may benefit as
> well and not have to maintain a separate code base.
Go for it. We'll work it out.
> I may also look at
> point 1, maybe as a plugin, or a stand alone program as I find the
> inline editing especially useful when going through bank statements to
> quickly enter categories.
I would not follow the route of a stand alone program. That would have to
read and write the file and the format may change in the future. A plugin
sounds reasonable, though the current plugin structure does not provide
an interface for a transaction editor. Nothing we could not change.
Thomas
> On 10/25/26 02:11, Thomas Baumgart via KMyMoney wrote:
> > Hello Dada,
> >
> > thanks for getting in touch here. Here some answers to your questions:
> >
> > 1. That is by design. In earlier versions we had two different modes
> > (form based and inline) but that required to maintain two different
> > versions of the editor. We combined both (where the form display is
> > a leftover which may disappear also) to come up with the current
> > version.
> >
> > 2. That is a good idea and extension to the ledger view. Currently,
> > it is not available, though.
> >
> > 3. see 2.
> >
> > 4. see 2.
> >
> > 5. Yes, the current development version (looks like you're using it)
> > allows that. Right click on the header of the table in the ledger
> > view to select the ones you want to have.
> >
> > The project is always open for patches. In case you want to start, please
> > make yourself familiar with the project platform onhttps://invent.kde.org/office/kmymoney
> > and join the developer mailing list onkmymoney-devel at kde.org.
> >
> > Regarding the use of AI, we expect that the human author (you) is
> > capable of explaining the generated code and knows what it is
> > doing in detail.
> >
> > Hope that answers your questions. I have on myself: did your AI
> > conversion provide any source code which we could add for others
> > to the project (see contrib subdir for examples)?
> >
> > Thomas
> >
> > On Sonntag, 25. Oktober 2026 05:22:21 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit Dada Krpasundarananda via KMyMoney wrote:
> >
> >> PS One more: 5) I'd like to know if the memo can have its own column in
> >> the ledger, editable in-line.
> >>
> >> On 10/24/26 22:10, Dada Krpasundarananda wrote:
> >>> Hello,
> >>>
> >>> After trying many times over the years to migrate 16 years of data
> >>> from Quicken 2013 and spending days of work I had given up. Recently I
> >>> tried again with the help of an AI assistant (Grok Bot). I explained
> >>> what I needed, sent the QIF export, and in less than 15 minutes it had
> >>> converted everything. The file opened flawlessly in KMyMoney on Linux,
> >>> with all 89 account balances matching Quicken to the cent. If anyone
> >>> is still stuck migrating, it's worth a try.
> >>>
> >>> After more than 20 years with Quicken, I'd like to keep a similar
> >>> workflow in KMyMoney (version 5.2.70 on KDE). Is any of the following
> >>> possible?
> >>>
> >>> 1. Editing transactions in-line in the ledger. That's much faster
> >>> than the transaction box. I can hide the box, but it comes back as
> >>> soon as I click a transaction.
> >>> 2. A list of accounts docked at the side, so I can quickly switch to
> >>> the one I need.
> >>> 3. Arranging that list in a custom order.
> >>> 4. Hiding accounts from that list.
> >>>
> >>> I've looked but couldn't find a way. If these aren't available, would
> >>> you be open to a patch for 2 – 4? And maybe for 1, though I could
> >>> imagine there is good reason it works the way it does?
> >>>
> >>> Thank you so much for KMyMoney.
> >>> Dada
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
--
Regards
Thomas Baumgart
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