Newbie and GST queries

[Michael Hall]

Hi All:

I'm new to this list, here's a brief blurb about why I joined.

I have just commenced a small business offering Linux solutions and support to
small businesses and community groups in Alice Springs, Central Australia. At
the moment I'm mainly doing web stuff, but I want to move into broader, more
general networked computing solutions. The single biggest usage of any kind of
computer by most small organisations, where I live at least, is accounting. Any
platform that doesn't offer a reliable accounting solution isn't going to go far
on the small business desktop. Doing everything else isn't good enough. Rather
than network Windows clients via Samba to Linux, I'd like to offer complete
Linux solutions. Which is why I took a look at GnuCash. I'd also like to do my
own bookwork with it too, of course.

Any accounting package that doesn't do GST also isn't going to get far in
Australia (GST is kind of like England's VAT I think). I know this issue has
been raised before as I came across it in the archives, without any definitive
solutions that I could see. So my first question would be:

Has there been any recent progress in either incorporating GST into GnuCash, or
are there any straight forward work arounds?

I'd be happy to hear from any Australians out there working with GnuCash and
doing GST. I'd also be happy to contribute to any projects that may be under way
in this area. I'm no good with C, Scheme or GTK, but I can do the web and write
documentation and training materials. Also know XML/XSLT and something of
PostgreSQL and SQL in general.

The other question is very newbie:

If I start GnuCash and play around with it, open a new set of accounts to try
out, etc, how can I get rid of them before creating the "real" set of accounts.
GnuCash (1.8.1 from memory, on RedHat 9) just won't forget about the original
set of accounts no matter what I do. Is deleting all GnuCash files in home
directory enough to clean the slate and start again?

Thanks

Michael Hall