Reducing File Size

[Doug Pastorello]

In this case, the script is removing splits from transactions and, due
to filtering, some of the splits are not removed. When this happens, the
check & repair operation will put the remainder of the transaction into
the imbalance. As you suggest, one could edit the transactions to create
proper splits. However, if that detailed information is not needed, you
can zero out the register with one transaction. If the balance later
becomes non-zero, that is an indicator of new incomplete transactions.
	--Doug.

On Mon, 2011-05-16 at 06:58 -0400, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> >Glad to hear that you are making progress. It sounds like you are making
> >goos progress. To address your questions;
> >1. You should not need to make a new "file" to zero out the imbalance
> >register. Just add a transaction, for the total amount, between
> >imbalance and the desired register. I used "retained earnings" because
> >it was there. I've been told that doing that is not the best accounting
> >practice. Adding the transaction to a register called "accumulated
> >earnings" may be more accurate.
> >  
> >
> I'm afraid that I have not been following this discussion (because of 
> the title line) so maybe way off base jumping in here BUT usually you 
> would never want to "zero out the imbalance" account in one fell swoop. 
> Instead you would want to correct every transaction that assigned 
> something to "imbalance".
> 
> For example, perhaps the main way folks have transactions going to 
> "imbalance" is that they forgot to enter the correct account (some other 
> account). You can correct those entries very easily by bringing the 
> transaction up for edit and this time filling in an account name instead 
> of leaving blank. Or in a large split transaction, this time complete 
> the job instead of entering only some of the splits.
> 
> In the old days (pen and ink on paper) you had to first FIND the 
> offending transactions. Here gnucash is making it easy for you by having 
> them all grouped in the "imbalance" account.
> 
> Michael D Novack, FLMI