Cash Book

[David Carlson]

On 12/17/2014 7:56 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
>
>>> One further question; in gnucash the opening  balance on the balance
>>> sheet reflects the opening balance when the books were originally
>>> started and is continuously carried forward.  In my country auditors
>>> require that books are ended off every financial year  and that the
>>> new financial year starts with the closing balance of the previous
>>> year.
>>>
>>>   
> No, the Balance Sheet presents the data as of the date specified. That
> would be the original opening balance only if you didn't change the
> effective date to the date that you want. A Balance Sheet is ALWAYS as
> of some specified date.
>
> Quite normal (here too) to report for an accounting period giving
> three reports (or five reports, will explain)
>
> Balance Sheets for the beginning and end of the reporting period and
> Income Statement (aka Statement of Revenues aka Profit and Loss
> depending on the type of entity for which the books are kept). That's
> three reports but in an ongoing situation the Balance Sheet at the
> start would have been run as the Balance Sheet of the end of the
> previous period.
>
> When I said five, for some types of entities it is normal to include
> side by side the previous period so would have the Income Statement
> from the previous period and the Balance Sheet for the start of that
> period.
>
> It is NOT necessary to "close the books" to create (or at some later
> time, recreate) any of these reports.
>
> Michael D Novack
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Jumping in kind of late but I can imagine that some auditors might want
proof that the file was not changed outside of a prescribed "audit
trail", which is impossible to prove one way or the other with GnuCash. 
If that is the case, the user must get different software.

David C