End of year processing?

[Paul Lussier]

In a message dated: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 09:57:39 PST
Matthew Vanecek said:

>What do you mean by "close the books"?  Taking it
>literally, I was not aware that gnucash had such a
>facility.  And we really don't want to close
>bank/credit/etc accounts whose balances don't rely on
>year-end processing but rather on real-time useage. 

"Closing the books" refers to deciding upon a period of time for 
which you consider a given set of accounts active.  At the end of 
that time period, you "close the books" and no more activity is 
allowed for that period.

Most people consider 1 year as the default time period.  I "close" my 
books on Dec 31st each year, and "open" a new set on January 1st.

This doesn't mean I close any of my accounts with the bank or cancel 
credit cards, etc.  All it means is that There are no transactions 
after the end-date of Dec. 31st.

This allows you to keep data for specific periods of time separate 
and allow you much smaller and more managable data sets to analyze.

At the end of the year, I export my account list and start a new
file/"set of books" to record transactions in.

HTH,
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
----

			  God Bless America!

	...we don't need to be perfect to be the best around,
		and we never stop trying to be better. 
		       Tom Clancy, The Bear and The Dragon