Finally arrived from Quicken. Some Questions

[Dada Krpasundarananda]

Hello Thomas,

Thank you, that helps a lot.

 1.

    Columns: I installed today's nightly AppImage (5.2.70-4c43e28), and
    choosing columns works. One problem: when I reopen the file, the
    column order and widths are reset (Memo goes back to the last
    column, and Detail takes half the width). Is there a way to keep
    them, or is this a known issue?

 2.

    Tabs: with "Accounts to open in ledger" set to "All accounts open at
    last close", all my tabs come back in my order. That already solves
    much of my problem.

 3.

    "Detail": with Payee and Memo as separate columns, Detail shows only
    the category. Even before, without a Memo column, it showed only the
    category, not the memo. As a new user this confused me, because when
    entering a transaction the field is called Category. Could the
    column be called "Category" in that case? Or if the name is
    intentional, I'd like to understand why.

 4.

    Migration scripts: attached is qif2kmy, a Python converter from
    Quicken QIF to .kmy, with a check script and a README guide
    (GPL-2.0-or-later, standard library only). It's tested on sample
    data. I'm happy to adjust it to fit contrib.

 5.

    Account sidebar (just an idea, no code yet): a dockable account list
    like Quicken's, in an order the user chooses by dragging, with a
    checkbox per account to hide it and a "hide zero balances" checkbox
    at the top. With many accounts, some only relevant seasonally, this
    would make daily work so much quicker. Would you be open to this,
    and where in the code would you suggest it should live?


          Thanks again, Dada


On 10/26/26 06:32, Thomas Baumgart via KMyMoney wrote:
> 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
> (seehttps://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 platformonhttps://invent.kde.org/office/kmymoney
>>> and join the developer mailing listonkmymoney-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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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