I don't see this as a 'mult-split' transaction. It looks like a bunch of
independent transactions (most of them simple between 2 accounts, but I
suppose they could be more complicated in the real world) taking place
on a repeating schedule.
You can certainly import them in advance all at once, but that doesn't
make them 'multi-split'.
A multi-split transaction is a *single event* that involves more than
two accounts. (either multiple debits, multiple credits, or both)
A payroll check would be a good example of this. As the receiver of the
check, you have one credit to Salary, and multiple debits to various
expense and/or asset accounts for deductions, e.g.,
Dr. Expenses:Income Taxes
Dr. Expenses:Social Security
Dr. Expenses:Health Insurance
Dr. Assets:Retirement Plan
Dr. Assets:Bank
Cr. Income:Salary
One transaction, more than 2 splits = multi-split
Now, a simple payment of an electric bill would be a simple transaction:
Dr. Expenses:Utilities
Cr. Assets:Bank
One transaction, only 2 splits, one debit & credit each = not multi-split
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The Help Manual & the Tutorial & Concepts Guide, documents the elements
you need in the CSV. The order is not critical as you are going to use
the matcher to define the columns anyway.
For a batch of simple transactions, you select one account (say perhaps
Assets:Checking) and then for each line in the file, you'll be matching
them to some other specific account. (perhaps expense accounts)
How you indicate the Amount determines if it is a debit or credit.
If you indeed import a multi-split transaction, instead of picking one
counter-account, you do so for each line, with either unique info (like
Description) being in the first line, or duplicated for each associated
split line.
Once again, the Help documents cover this.
Though honestly, the best way to learn it, is to use it. You can bail
out on the import process at any time. Even once you complete the
import, you can still simply delete the new transactions if they aren't
correct and you want to play with your CSV more. (alternately, just make
a backup before importing and restore it to roll back and try again.)
Importing NEW transactions is relatively straightforward and simple.
Importing with the possibility of duplicating existing transactions (to
clear or update info) is a bit more involved and usually requires more
steps.
Regards,
Adrien
On 9/14/26 4:44 PM, Luc Maisonobe wrote:
Hi all
During a discussion on a Gnucash feature request on bugzilla, the
discussion shifted to multi-split CSV import. In order to help me
understand, I asked for more explanations and more importantly for an
example of use.
So for the benefit of all users, here is a made-up case, where I assume
the transactions below have somehow been computed beforehand by an
external tool (spreadsheet, Python script, whatever) and I want to
import these transactions.
Let's say I have this hierarchy of accounts:
- Income
- Salary
- Work 1
- Work 2
- Retirement
- Assets
- Cars
- Car 1
- Buy
- Amortization
- Resell
- Car 2
- Buy
- Amortization
- Resell
- Expenses
- Utilities
- Electric
- Liabilities
- House
Then say that I want to import these transactions (all these numbers
are fake, of course), using ISO8601 date format:
- 100€ of income each month from 2026-09-01 to 2028-12-31 from Work 1
- 10€ of income once a year from 2026-06-01 to 2030-12-31 from Work 2
- single 2000€ regularization income on 2029-01-01 when leaving Work 1
- 50€ of income each month from 2029-01-01 for as long as possible from
Retirement
- Consider Car 1 amortization is finished (I left it only to have two
accounts with the same name)
- Resell Car 1 for 250€ on 2027-10-15
- Car 2 amortization reduces linearly each month from 540€ to 0€ over 5
years starting 2025-01-01 (i.e. 540€, 525€, 510€… 45€, 30€, 15€, 0€)
- Electric bill 30€ each month
- House loan 80€ each month for the next 6 years
The question is: how do I use multi-split CSV import to import these
transactions, or in other words how do I set up my external tool so it
creates a CSV file that gnucash could import?
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