End-Of-Year date?

[David Brock]

On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 21:56, Roger Keays wrote:
> > There has been some recent discussion about 'closing off the year', and
> > I understood at the time, that there is no function to do that.  I think
> > that a simple journal entry (or several) of all revenue and expense
> > account balances into RE would do it, just the way you state.
> 
> IMHO, I don't see the point of balancing the accounts at the end of the year.
> Maybe if you kept all your accounts using pen and paper it would be useful, but
> with gnucash you can easily select date ranges for your reports.
> 
> Having said that, I'm wondering if anybody knows how to filter the main accounts
> page for a date range - I don't see a menu option for this.
> 

That's pretty much exactly what I'm referring to.  Income Statement
account balances are time dependent- Current year is all that makes
sense.

In my accounting understanding (NB:IANAA) at year-end, the difference
between Revenues and Expenses for the year is transferred into Retained
Earnings.  If it isn't, then I'm not sure of the role of the RE account.
(Assets & Liab accumulate, as they should)

What made me ask (or comment) in the first place is the account list,
which has a cumulative total for all accounts.  For the Balance Sheet
accounts, it makes sense, but IMHO, not so for Income Statement
accounts.  Specifically, what is the significance of my cumulative
expenses and revenues?  The longer I use the program (without effecting
year-end changes) the larger it grows.  At least, if the YE is rolled,
it will tell me the exepenses or revenues YTD.

Thoughts?

;-David