Year end procedure...

[FireFly]

--- On Wed, 12/30/09, James Wilde <james.wilde at sunde-wilde.com> wrote:

> From: James Wilde <james.wilde at sunde-wilde.com>
> Subject: Re: Year end procedure...
> To: "FireFly" <fireflys_98 at yahoo.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org, "Ken G." <beachkid at insightbb.com>
> Date: Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 10:05 AM
> 
> On Dec 29, 2009, at 21:10 , FireFly wrote:
> 
> > use the Close Books option from the Tools menu?
> 
> Does this transfer the balance on asset, liability and
> equity accounts as a single sum for each account, or are the
> transactions for the accounts transferred?

It transfers Income and Expense totals to Equity accounts

It transfers the total balance as of whatever date you specify as the closing date into the equity account (so it's single sum for each account, as opposed to all transactions).

> 
> Does the balance on the income statement/profit and loss
> account get transferred as a single sum under equity, with
> expense and income accounts reduced to zero?

Sorry, don't know anything about income statements or profit/loss accounts

> 
> Does the procedure create a new file, and if so, can one
> choose the name of the new file?

It doesn't create a new file.
> 
> Can one have the old file(s) and the new file(s) in the
> same directory, or is it adviseable to keep them in separate
> directories?  What happens when one presses 'Save' if
> they are in the same directory?

Doesn't apply, since it doesn't create a new file.

> 
> If one updates the old year file after running the Close
> Books option do changes to asset, liability and equity
> accounts get transferred to the new year?  I.e. can one
> create the new year's books before the final transactions of
> the old year are completed?  Can one enter new year
> transactions in the new year books before the final
> transactions of the old year are completed?

You can create new transactions since it uses a date as to when to close the books (so for me, I do transactions on 1/1/2010 onwards, and they won't be pulled in by the close-books function.

Since it's just a really big "split" transaction, you can still change stuff in the old books, you just have to make the same changes in the equity transfer transaction if you want it all to still hold as the "close", personally I wait until I've gotten all statements/transactions from the prior year finished before I do the close books, but this is personal use, business use may require different handling.

Hope this helps.

- James Duerr

E-mail: FireFlys_98 at yahoo.com
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