Importing data from other personal finance programs

If you have used another personal finance program that can export QIF files, such as Quicken or Microsoft Money, you can import the data into GnuCash. See the instructions for the QIF importer.

Once you've done that, you're ready to go - but first, couple of quick hints about two things GnuCash does a little differently from those programs:

• Where some programs uses "categories" to categorize expenses and income types, GnuCash uses income and expense accounts. They work in a similar way, but it's a considerably cleaner and more flexible way of handling things once you get used to the idea.

• Some programs use a list of accounts. GnuCash uses a "tree" of accounts, allowing you to group similar sorts of accounts - very useful when reporting your financial data. You can rearrange your accounts to use a more tree-like structure by using the Account Edit Dialog.