closing out accounts

[Greg Wilkins]

There was some discussion about a year back about this feature - but
I don't think many were convinced that it is needed and I have
seen no progress on it.

I'd like to re-affirm my need for such a mechanism to scrub out old
transactions from my running accounts.

Just to repeat the reasons for not just opening a new set of accounts
for each financial year:

  + Around the end of the year, the accounts are often fluid and
    entries may move back of forth accross the bounds of a financial
    year.

  + In places where the company financial year is not the same as
    the personal financial year (eg) it is good to be able to
    hold last years accounts so reports can be generated over various
    periods.   But the year before last is just noise.

  + The best way to ensure that this year starts from the right
    balances is to use last years records exactly.

Note that I think there is a related problem with the balance sheet
report.  For profit, it uses the profit from day 1 of the accounts.
For proper accounting, you want the profit shown on the report
to be the same for the FY profit/loss report.   A roll over mechanism
could allow the balance sheet to distinguish between retained profits
and current profits.

regards



-- 
Greg Wilkins<gregw@mortbay.com>                http://www.mortbay.com
Mort Bay Consulting Pty. Ltd. AU.                    +61(0)29977 2395
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