Microsoft Money Migration

The purpose of this page is to list hints and tips that may assist users in migrating their books from Microsoft Money(TM) to GnuCash.

Overview

To transfer data, use the Export Function of Microsoft Money. Use the Loose QIF (longer names) format if available. GnuCash will create your accounts automatically from the information in the QIF files. When exporting Microsoft Money records each transaction twice, once in each account's QIF. Thus for the conversion to be successful all accounts must be loaded and the Account names must match to enable GnuCash to remove the duplicates. It may be more convenient to enter Stock Codes in the Securities editor prior to importing.

Adjustments for Accounts

Investment accounts do not record the account names in the QIF files so if an error is made in entering the account name the transaction will be duplicated. The account names can be included in the file by placing the following text at the beginning of each file:

!Account
NName of Account Here
TInvst
^

Asset accounts should start with a zero balance to import successfully otherwise the asset has no balancing transaction (it has to come from somewhere!).

Adjustments for Transactions

Check for any transactions with one side in the unspecified account. These are transactions with no category specified. You should enter a category in Microsoft Money for these and transfer the data again.

A transaction with two splits one of which is a transfer adding to zero in a single account may not transfer properly. Replace the two splits with a single transaction to the target of the transfer.

Final Checks

After conversion examine the account balances and compare with the final account balance reports from Microsoft Money. Any liability accounts will probably have the wrong type and a negative balance in GnuCash. Edit the Account and correct the type.

Also check the category spending over all time from Microsoft Money with the Accounts in GnuCash.

Once the accounts are consistent with Microsoft Money you can edit individual GnuCash accounts and reassign them as needed.

Stock Prices, Budgets and Scheduled Bills and Deposits will need to be copied manually.

Troubleshooting

If while attempting to import a QIF file created by Microsoft Money, you receive the message, "A bug was detected while reading the QIF file", even though I had entered a preference for verbose error messages in GnuCash, consult the wiki at Something bad happened; how can I help debug? and look especially at information about:

Console output, log file, ...