advice please: end of year

[Laura Lincoln]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:44 PM, Ken Heard <ken at heard.name> wrote:

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> Laura Lincoln wrote:
>
> > You don't need to open up a new set of accounts for each
> month/year/quarter.
> > As long as you tell the software what your fiscal year is then the
> software
> > *should* do your reports correctly. It should automatically roll your
> prior
> > year Net income into Retained Earnings automatically for you. I'm new to
> GC
> > but that is what general accounting software should do automatically for
> > you. If it does not then hopefully someone will come along and correct
> me.
> > And if it does not then I will be looking for another accounting program
> for
> > my client.
>
> I should certainly *not* expect any accounting applications to close a
> year automatically on the last day of the year.  Gnucash follows the
> norm and requires manual intervention to close the year.  I have yet to
> close a year, but I expect "Tools>Close book" will close all income and
> expense accounts to a specified retained earnings, surplus of equity
> account on the specified year end date.
>
> It *never* happens that all entries for the closing year are all
> finished by the date of closing.  Tax payments and remittances are
> examples of such entries.  Annual reports have to be completed before
> "closing the book", but these can be prepared from the back-up of each
> year.
>
> Regards, Ken Heard
>
> -

I think I phrased that incorrectly. I did not mean that the system would
automatically close the year on 12/31/xx..

What I am used to with accounting systems is when running balance sheet
reports at the beginning of the year (based on report date not calendar
date) that the system automatically "rolls" the prior year Net Income/Loss
into Retained Earnings. I DON'T have to do manual journal entries to "close"
the year.