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Since 2000, with the 2.0 specification, OFX has become XML 1.0 compliant and has added 1098, 1099 and W2 tax form download capabilities. ( http://www.ofx.net/ofx/ab_main.asp)

If the banks TRULY supported those apps, they would be keyed on unique transaction numbers.

But both the banks and the software supports unique transaction id's. See? Says so here, too. (You gotta search for "FITID" word doc.) Gnucash supports them, too.

It's only if you use the old QIF format that you don't get unique transaction IDs. Which is, of course, why MS Money only imports OFX and doesn't export OFX. It only exports QIF. So that if you've got your data in MS Money and you try to import it into some other program (gnucash or quicken) you'll have to deal with duplicates.

While QFX was an early standard, it is now only supported by Quicken and legacy versions of Money. Years ago OFX was started to act as a sort of standards body for downloadable transactions.

I believe that GNUCash has OFX support in development and there is a LGPL OFXLib on Freshmeat or on SourceForge. You could also go to www.ofx.net to get the specs (though you will need to sign up).

The QFX file format is a standard implementation of OFX. For those not in the know, OFX (Open Financial eXchange) is an XML standard for financial data exchange. This is supported by a number of third party financial software providers (including my glorious employer). If your bank doesn't have OFX support, then you're pretty much up a creek. QIF, Intuit's older data format, is pretty much dead now. I don't know if they still support it, but from what I've been told support is sunsetting rapidly.

I don't know who told you that no banks support QFX/OFX for non-windows platforms, it is a platform independent standard. Unless, of course, your bank purchased a windows/IE specific solution. I know our software does work on mac versions of Quicken (I wrote it), and if they follow the intuit example code it is trivial to write.

The OFX standard, including the DTD, can be found here

You can get the spec here (but you must register first).

Due to some sort of brain damage, www.ofx.net returns a redirect to "http://ofx/default.asp". On some browsers (Galeon, in this case), this ends up going to www.ofx.com instead. Until the OFX website fixes that link, try this one...

Open Financial Exchange

The protocol is open and standardized now: OFX (link down right now). It's based on XML. In theory, it should not require relations between the software vendor and the bank; the end user should be able to get all the necessary information. Reality may be different, however.

The specification can be downloaded here, bypassing the annoying requirement to provide information for their database before downloading.

The specification can be downloaded here, bypassing the annoying requirement to provide information for their database before downloading.

As many have commented, the ability to over-the-net transactions is what keeps people using Quicken (tm) & Windoze. Quicken uses a protocol called OFX http://www.ofx.net . There may be some issues with incorporating this into GnuCash, They've been talking about it for a long time. BTW, it may already be in there, I've still got an old 1.3 version.

-- Rich

This is the standard that was started by CheckFree, Intuit and Microsoft in early 1997 and seems to be what most banks are supporting for communication with financial software.

My bank lets me download a file in this format, while Discover Card seems to use some direct link from Quicken and MS Money. The latest version of the format seems to be XML.

The specifications are available (in .pdf) on the site, as well as information on certifying software that uses the standard. I don't know if GnuCash supports OFX, but it would be nice if it did.

It's not too difficult... the OFX specifications that MS Money, Quicken, and almost all brokers and banks use can be downloaded for free at www.ofx.net. The certification is only needed for a server (i.e. the bank). I'm writing a similar financial app... it's really not difficult to add.