losing data

[Chris Bester]

Hi Maf
Thank you for your very comprehensive reply.  I will have to sit down and
study it very carefully.  But I have another question.  I have asked this
before and received various answers and suggestions.  Every month, and at
the end of my financial year, I present my committee with a Balance Sheet
and other financial statements.
However, from the start of the new financial year I have to submit financial
statements every month, but with figures starting from zero.  I realize that
in computerized accounting you do not need to end off your year and start a
new year as you can call up any figure in any report by entering your own
starting date and ending date, but not with your Balance sheet.  You Balance
sheet has to have your closing banking or equity balance as an opening
balance in the new year and all expense and income accounts must start with
zero balances.  In Gucash you can determine starting dates and ending dates
for all reports except the Balance Sheet.  You cannot run your Balance sheet
forever with accumulating figures.
Do you have an answer to this one?

Season's  Greetings to you to.  Hope you have a wonderful Xmas.

Chris 


-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user-bounces+chrisbester=cybersmart.co.za at gnucash.org
[mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+chrisbester=cybersmart.co.za at gnucash.org] On
Behalf Of Maf. King
Sent: 24 December 2013 12:14 PM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Fwd: Re: losing data


On Tue 24 December 13 10:43:00 you wrote:
> Hi There
> 
> I am, myself,  not quite sure what happened, and why.  I will try and 
> explain.
> 
> I went to <File> and underneath <properties> there was: 1. Balance 
> Sheet( equile)Aug. 2013. Gnucash
> 							     2. Documents.
> Gnucash
> 							     3.
> Documents.201309201100106.gnucash
> 							     4. Balance
> Sheet.gnucash
> 
> (No.1. Balance Sheet(equile)Aug.2013)  was what also appeared in the 
> top left hand corner above the Tool Bar.  I took a chance and clicked on
(No.2.
> Documents. Gnucash.)  and all of a sudden Gnucash started running 
> through all my accounts and reports.  This carried on for some time 
> and when it stopped I  discovered I had again lost some data, but this 
> time only from a certain date in November. I also noticed that 
> underneath <properties>, (Documents. Gnucash.)  was now No.1 and ( 
> Balance Sheet(equile) had moved to No.2. Also the bar above the 
> toolbar was replaced by ( Documents. Gnucash.) followed by the name of the
account I had open at that instant.
> 
> Hopefully you can explain this, because I still do not understand how 
> it worked, but in the meantime my own solution therefore is; stay 
> clear of anything under <File>.
> 

Hi Chris.
I'll try to explain by the way of an analogy to a non-computerised accounts
"system" of keeping receipts in a shoebox under the bed. Yes, it's a
stretch, (and a not very good system). Bear with me!

Gnucash can track multiple sets of accounts - maybe husband, wife, joint
(for example).  Each set of transactions is stored in it's own data file.
This is very similar to several shoeboxes stuffed full of paper receipts
stored under the bed.  E.G. One shoe box for him, one for her and one full
of joint things.

If you used the "joint" shoebox by mistake when adding the september's pile
of receipts, when you next came to your shoebox in november, and those
receipts were not there, would you assume that mice had eaten them, or that
you had done something odd last time round?

Gnucash remembers the 4 most recent shoe boxes that you looked in (the
numbered list in the file menu), and by default starts up with the *most*
recent one (number 1 in the list) already open and ready to go - the
program's display window title bar tells you the name of the file (shoebox)
that is presently open for editing.

At some point, I believe that you created a balance sheet (eguile) report,
and intended to keep that as a separate page for later use or distribution
to others.  You should have used "Export" to create a HTML report file, but
you used "Save As" which created a clone of your shoebox with all the
receipts at that date in it.  Easy and very understandable mistake to make.

Newly added receipts only went into the original shoebox.   Then you somehow

got in a knot by opening the "clone shoebox" and working with that for a
while.  (Maybe you were trying to send the balance sheet to an accountant or
colleague?)  So it seems as though some data had disappeared, when it has
just gone into the wrong shoebox.

Personally, because I have 6 or so sets of books that I use at different
frequencies over the average month, I nearly always use the "Click on
Datafile in filemanager" way of starting gnucash, only very seldom do I use
a command or "main/start" menu approach.  If you are not on a Mac, where
this method has some known problems, may I suggest that this way of starting
GC may help to avoid confusion in the future, as you would always know the
name of the file
(shoebox) that you have opened. YMMV, of course

Seaonal Goodwill,
Maf.


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