Now I have to set up my expense categories to reflect what I have in Mint. So, I don't know why the checking account gave me so much trouble, but the problem did not repeat with other accounts. Today, I managed to load all my different savings account transactions with QFX, and that went fine with the balances equaling my online bank balances without tinkering. Below you can see the second to last column on the right is the withdrawal column, and the $10 payment reduced my balance as you'd expect. My second try with csv seems to have worked. And that seems to work as a newbie like me would expect. I have it set to deposit/withdrawal terminology. So, your advice at the most basic level works for me. I've never done double-entry book keeping before. Is it possible you were confused by that? Apologies for the "is it plugged in" type question, but I've seen a lot of people who expect it to look like their bank book and are nonplussed that it's the reverse of what they expect. I hesitate to suggest this but one thing I want to observe frequently trips people up is that GnuCash uses standard accounting terminology, so a deposit into your bank account is a debit, NOT a credit, and a withdrawal is a credit, NOT a debit. If you're comfortable doing so, could you post a screenshot of some of the account transactions? Do you have GnuCash set to use the deposit/withdrawal terminology, or debit/credit? Account Register & General Ledger Window. I gave up on it when I found I didn't have an app on my MacBook air to open those files to see what was wrong. You can find a copy of the GFDL at this link ghelp:fdl or in the file. Accountants call these parts of a transaction Ledger Entries. The from account is transferring value to the to account.
Then click Next Load QIF files: Click the Start button to load the file. Navigate to and select the file you wish to import and click Import. Click Next to proceed Select a QIF file to load: Open a file selection dialog. Thus, a single transaction must always consist of at least two parts, a from and a to account. The import process steps are: Import of QIF files: Initial informational panel. Yeah, I had tried the QFX option and had reverse entries for deposits and withdrawals. A transaction in a double entry accounting system such as GnuCash is an exchange between at least 2 accounts. I was able to load QIF files from my credit cards with only mild problems-a few balance payments were listed as purchases. I don't doubt I could be making a configuration mistake. The key reason I went with csv was that I could specify what each column was before loading. I gave up on it when I found I didn't have an app on my MacBook air to open those files to see what was wrong. Yeah, I had tried the QFX option and had reverse entries for deposits and withdrawals. You might try importing QFX from another bank and see if it affects other accounts in your setup. Given that this has worked for at least one other Gnucash user, it is likely a mis-configuration of the account. OP, manually editing cvs files is not sustainable, definitely not fun. It's been very tedious, especially since I haven't used Gnucash before. Thanks all for the suggestions, I was able to make it work by downloading Ally as a csv file and editing it.