Entering historical data

[Ian Haycox]

Don't know why, but I had no problem reconciling. The date and balance I
entered were from my latest statement and it reconciled the historical
transactions OK and left the previously reconciled transactions of a later
date as reconciled.

I've only been using GC for a couple of days, so maybe beginners luck, or
the way I altered the opening balances.

BTW - I read the links you provided for the GC list, but Firefox flagged an
Invalid Security Certificate for https://lists.gnucash.org

Ian.

2009/5/14 Svetoslav Trochev <sal_electronics at hotmail.com>

> Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> > Ian Haycox wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I've just started using GC and entered opening balances from 1st Jan
> >> 2009
> >> and all my transactions. Everything reconcilled OK and I'm very
> >> impressed
> >> with GC. Thanks to all those who have contributed.
> >>
> >> I'd now like to be able to enter data for 2008, 2007,... Is there
> >> anything
> >> special I need to be aware of, e.g. opening balances of Equity accounts,
> >> i.e. do I need to adjust anything, to, for example, the 1st Jan 2008
> >> before
> >> entering transactions.
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks.
> > Nothing REALLY special depending on how you do this. There is nothing
> > "real time" about GnuCash so when you (now) enter transactions for
> > 2007 and 2008 it doesn't know that you didn't enter those transactions
> > back then. However to prevent having to adjust or redo 2009 what I
> > suggest is that you start a second set of books you might call "Pre
> > 2009". You might begin as if you began using GnuCash in 2007, start
> > with THAT set of opening balances. Then enter all your transactions
> > through the end of 2008.
> >
> > You then take a balance sheet as of the end of 2008 and check that it
> > agrees with the balance sheet as of the beginning of 2009. This is
> > rather similar to the way it was in the old days with accounting done
> > pen and ink on paper and it was customary to open a new set of books
> > at the start of each accounting period and close them at the end. If
> > your balance sheets do not agree, then either your 2007 opening
> > balances were wrong or you missed some intervening transactions.
> >
> > If you absolutely want just one set of books then how hard might
> > depend upon exactly how you started your 2009 books. I have no idea
> > what to tell you if you used the "opening balance" method when
> > creating accounts but if you used the traditional method, creating the
> > accounts with zero balances and then starting the books with two split
> > transactions against equity that entered the starting balances of all
> > other accounts then it's relatively simple. In effect you delete these
> > two transactions replacing them with the corresponding transactions to
> > start at 2007 (actually, you just change the date and amounts) and
> > then enter all intervening transactions. STRONG ADVICE -- if you do
> > this first make a backup copy of your 2009 books! In fact you probably
> > put this copy in a different directory and that becomes your books
> > going back to 2007. You will still want to make that confirmation
> > check that the balance sheets at the end of 2008 and the start of 2009
> > agree.
> >
> > Michael
> I am doing this and it works with one big problem. Entering the old data
> will break the reconcile feature. You will not be able to reconcile your
> accounts any more. The only workaround I have found out is to reset
> reconcile flag for each transaction and restart to reconcile your
> statements from the beginning.
> There is other tread going on on this issue (
> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2009-May/029832.html ),
> but for some reason my latest e-mails did not made there, so Derek was
> kind to repost it and you can see his answers on my questions at
> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2009-May/029864.html
>
>
>
>


-- 
Ian