"Tools > Close Book" doesn't seem to do what I want, i.e., to shrink gnucash file by rolling up transactions

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 08:38:33AM +0100, Marcus Wolschon wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have similar issues with the gnucash-file growing over the years.
> However there are many transactions spanning the year-boundary
> where bank-statements on interests and postfolio-statements, ...
> come in way later then the first or january.
> 
> So I am thinking of writing a program using jGnucashLib to
> take a gnucash-file and create a new file with the same
> accounts, the start-balances of the 31.12. 23:59:59 last year
> and keeping all transactions that have a date past this
> timestamp.
> 
> It would also allow to e.g. split the year 2007 into a new file
> and only keep 2008-2009 in the current one. (Since there will
> not be any changes to the old data.)
> You can then put a digital signature and cryptographic timestamp
> on it and archive the old year(s).
> 
> If anyone interested in this?
> It would allow a user to go on with book-keeping and close
> the year a few weeks later, when all the paperwork has
> arrived.

That is the tool we need.  Take a gnucash file and a date, and 
generate two gnucash files -- one with all the trandactions before 
that date, and one with the rest, inserting a few initial-balance 
transactions so things will work out properly.

Some people will use this soon after the start of a new year, some long 
after, when the original file gets unwieldy.

It's what the perl script that was posted here a few years ago did 
(though I recall it had problems with multiple currencies).  It no 
longer works, I'm told, because of a change in gnucash's file format.

To make the tool remain viable, it should use gnucash's API, and, if 
possible, get embedded into the gnucash code base.

-- hendrik