Re: GnuCash and CLI Ledger

["Bradley M. Kuhn" <bkuhn ebb org>]

Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote at 14:19 (EDT) on Wednesday:

> The automation required is not for reports, it is for importing PayPal
> data.  This involves discriminate between Friends of GNOME donations
> (one-time payments, subscriptions), other donations (LGM, GIMP, etc.)

Ah, I had the same problem with Ledger.  I wrote a hacked-together Perl
script that does a pretty good job using the PayPal API to read in
donations.  It includes logic to make sure donations are properly
earmarked as needed.

The script is a hack and designed to write out Ledger entries, so if you
aren't switching to Ledger, it might not be of help.

I'm of course happy to share this software (under GPLv3, of course ;).
Because I hacked it together so quickly, it's got some password-ish data
hard-coded, but if anyone reading this wants it, ping me and I'll make
it an action item to move the password data to a config file and release
the code.

At the very least, perhaps it could be used as an example of using the
PayPal API Perl library, even if you can't use the script directly.


Meanwhile, I should also mention that Karl Fogel of Question Copyright
(cc'ed) faced a similar problem, which he solved by moving to CiviCRM,
which has a PayPal import feature.  I don't know if this would fully
solve your problem, since the end goal is getting it into GnuCash
correctly, but it might be a piece.  Karl told me he's willing to help
out GNOME Foundation on this front if you need advice on how to set it
up.  Karl mentioned this blog post is a good resource:
     http://www.rants.org/2009/04/29/civicrm-saves-the-day/

> It can touch the GnuCash file, but it would be needed to check the
> consistency of the data (avoid duplicated entries), or it could be
> used an intermediate file that GnuCash can understand and let the tool
> verify/warn for duplicate entries.

My Perl program does this by saving the PayPal transaction ID in the
Memo field.  I assume the CiviCRM PayPal import plugin handles this too.


-- 
   -- bkuhn
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