Year's end, file size an issue?

[David T.]

Michael--

As you say, do what works for you. The OP was asking as a personal user coming from Quicken, and I was answering from that perspective. For me, in the personal finance arena, I am very much interested in how I have used my money over longer periods of time.

As always, an interesting discussion that shows the many ways to use this tool!

David

--- On Thu, 1/28/10, Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com> wrote:

> From: Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com>
> Subject: Re: Year's end, file size an issue?
> To: "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "Jeff Kletsky" <gnucash at allycomm.com>, gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010, 3:20 PM
> David T. wrote:
> 
> > Mike--
> > 
> > That is how I have solved the situation in the past.
> The main problem with this (which I implied but did not
> outright state in my original reply) is that there is no
> easy way to tell Gnucash to omit January first in reports.
> You have to manually change the date each time. This is not
> odious, but it is annoying. There is no "Previous Year
> Starting on January 2nd" option for the date range. And yes,
> you can always save the report with a January 2nd start
> date, but each year, you'd have to edit the date anyway.
> >  
> Well since I would almost never be running any of these
> reports "real time" have to at least edit the ending date.
> Having to do two dates instead of just one doesn't add much
> work.
> 
> > Additionally, the zeroing transactions completely
> throw off any longer-term reports, which effectively
> eliminates the reason why you'd keep multiple years' data in
> the first place--that is, to get longterm trends on
> different accounts.
> >  
> Not what I would find having previous years' data useful
> for. The totals I would be getting from the reports. But if
> somebody asked a question like "how much of an honorarium
> did we give the annual meeting speakers in the three
> previous years so I would be looking for individual
> transactions in the account for
> "annual meeting expenses". Without having to open each
> year's books separately.
> 
> > So, yours is certainly a viable solution, but I still
> don't like it, which is why I stopped closing my books.
> >  
> My needs would be different. Because the software is
> showing account balances useful for me to be able to see at
> a glance whether some account is unusually high (or low) for
> the time of year, relative to the budget, etc. WITHOUT
> having to run a report (which would allow for a specified
> date range).
> 
> Yes of course, not closing books would allow for long term
> reports (Income statement since business begun) but such
> reports are not normal in accounting where reporting
> intervals are almost always never longer than a fiscal year.
> Note that this doesn't mean that FINAL versions of the
> reports do not cover longer periods. Thus I am reporting for
> a non-profit; standard practice is to show current period
> alongside previous period.. But that's outside of what asking
> GnuCash to do -- GnuCash has produced the various reports,
> then they are then combined, edited, etc. using the
> accountant's favorite editor. I asked the accountant who
> prepares the final versions if I should write custom reports
> to do all that and was told "don't bother" because STILL
> would need to be edited to insert notes explaining each
> unusual/special item as well as the fixed text (like
> organizational standards for depreciated assets vs expensed,
> informal vs formal restrictions and reserves, etc.)
> 
> The key thing -- do it the way that serves YOUR needs.
> 
> Michael
> 
>