Splitting a file into years

[David T.]

This is something of an aside, but can anyone tell me exactly what steps an
accountant would take to split a file by year? I know that one is supposed to
use Equity accounts to represent the balances on January 1, but what does one
do about unreconciled transactions? Do they carry over, and how do they figure
into the Opening Balance transaction?

With expense accounts, does one simply clear these out (thereby 'resetting' the
expense balance)? 

What about with Stock assets? Which transactions would one retain in these
accounts? I have pondered in the past about how to calculate cost basis for
stocks if older transactions get removed, and it seems to me rather important
from a tax-reporting perspective to retain this information. If some
transactions are retained (such as those that add or remove shares), however,
they must be altered in some principled manner to ensure that current account
balances remain accurate. How?

I have used some sort of computerized banking software for 18 years (Quicken
and now GnuCash), and my account structure has evolved into a rather complex
beast with transactions going back many years. With loans, mortgages, multiple
investment accounts, open and closed credit accounts, tax-free spending
accounts (both for myself and my spouse), and expense accounts covering every
aspect of my personal life and my independent business, I would really like to
be able to know how to split out older portions of the file in a principled
way.

If I could grok the process, perhaps I could figure out how to automate it...

David

--- Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> Quoting Carl Wagner <cwagster at gmail.com>:
> 
> > I have a file I started on 1/1/2006 to the present.  I would to split
> > this file into two files one for 2006 and the other for 2007. Is this
> > possible to do?  If so,  could you please send me to a How to section.
> 
> What I do is just:
> 
>   cp 2006 2007
> 
> And then leave all the old data in there.   GnuCash itself does not have
> a tool to do what you want.  Jonathan Kamens sent a perl script to
> the list (either this of -devel, I forget) a few years ago which can
> be used to strip out some transactions, but I dont know if it
> will properly keep your books balanced.
> 
> -derek
> -- 
>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
> 
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