Crossing to a new year (was Re[2]: Extracting Account names)

[Rusty Carruth]

Paul Lussier <pll@mclinux.com> wrote:
> 
> In a message dated: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 08:48:10 MST
> Rusty Carruth said:
> 
> >(Note that I've not included the list.  Probably a mistake,
> >so feel free to reply to the list with you answers if you 
> >think they should go to the world.)
> 
> Nah, too lazy to change the headers :)

Well, I managed to overcome *my* laziness, but it sure wasn't
easy!  ;-)

I'm going to include a little more than I normally would, so others
can get a running leap at what's been said...  (as it were ;-)

> >That's what I was thinking.  How do you handle the fact that your
> >last year's balances will keep changing for a while till all last
> >year's stuff comes through?  (You know, the things you forgot to
> >record (nah, we NEVER forget! ;-)
> 
> Well, that's an interesting dillemma.  
> ...
> 
> In both cases, I'd reconcile as best I could, then, if it didn't come 
> out right, I'd adjust the "Ending Balance" by the difference shown in 
> GnuCash's reconcile window.  Once everything was reconciled with 
> statements, I'd use the number GnuCash said I had as the "carry 
> forward to next year" number.
> ...

> >Does anything strange happen when you do a reconcile across years?
> 
> Yeah, my eyes go blurry, I feel a little feint, get nauseas, mouth 
> goes dry, etc.  That's when I know I should quit for the night ;)
> 
> >or do you just do it 'twice'?
> 
> Are you insane!  Do it twice!  After what I just described, why would 
> I want to do that! ;)
> 
> Well, I guess I actually do.  I reconcile for the December portion of 
> the statement, then again for the January portion of the statement.
> 
> >(Trying to plan ahead here!  :-)
> 
> Yeah, me too.  I say that every year, though for the first time in 
> years, I think I may actually be able to stay on top of all this 
> stuff! (yeah, right, sure I will ;)

So, having looked at what its going to be like to run split accounts
till everything catches up, I'm beginning to think there's got to
be a better way.

So, here's a couple of options I see:

1 - do nothing.  Use the date select feature of gnucash for getting
	year-based reports.  (Need to investigate to be sure everything
	I want to use date-based can be used that way, especially the
	'expenses in a year' amounts)

2 - do nothing until ALL of the previous year is reconciled and cleared.
	Then, write a script of some kind to split the xml file up
	across the year (and maybe add beginning balances while I'm
	busy going insane anyway ;-).

3 - same as 2, but modify gnucash to do the split instead of writing
	a script.

4 - something else?

So, I'm soliciting comments and ideas on what's the best way to cross
years when I want to be able to look at the expenses on a per-year
basis. Hmm - maybe I need to add the following option to the above
list:

5 - add a report to gnucash which makes time-based reports on any
	category tree (e.g. montly expense amounts for the last 12 months)
	(assuming that its not already there)

rc