accounting period

[John Dablin]

On 19/08/10 11:48, Tarlika Elisabeth Schmitz wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:01:12 +1000
> Elizabeth Dodd<edodd at billiau.net>  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 19 Aug 2010, Tarlika Elisabeth Schmitz wrote:
>>> The UK tax year starts on 6th April.
>>>
>>> In Preferences->Accounting Period I can either enter a generic date
>>> (e.g. start of year) or a specific date, which I have to amend
>>> at the beginning of every tax year.
>>>
>>> Is this the way to set my accountingperiod from 6th April to 5th
>>> April?
>>
>>
>> This could be a more general question regarding locale.
>> How will we set accounting periods in Gnucash according to locale?
>> I assume that first we collect the information, and then some one has
>> to code to read that information.
>
> It would be too specific and impossible to maintain code that
> sets default accounting periods for different locales! It would not
> even make much sense as companies can set their own accounting period.
>
> The only thing that might make sense is being able to set a different
> start date for an annual accounting period (other than 1st Jan). But
> even this is a lot programming effort considered the minor
> inconvenience for the user.
>
> It was just that an earlier post pointed out the possibility of using
> generic start and end dates in reports such as accounting period in
> order for the reports to remain generic.
>

As a sole trader in the UK with quite a small turnover I've made my 
accounting period end on 31st March and pretend that the tax year ends 
then too. I doubt if the taxman will quibble as long as I'm consistent 
from year to year, but I'll admit it's never been put to the test.

John Dablin