Using for GnuCash for multiple companies

[jralls at ceridwen.us]

> On July 4, 2014 at 5:46 AM Axel Essbaum <axel at essbaum.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> I've been a GnuCash user for about 5 years, and I'm now using version 2.4.11
> on a Mac (haven't upgraded since everything pretty much works fine).
>
> I am starting a couple of new companies and wondering what accounting software
> to use. The question hinges partially on the need to be able to open both
> company's accounts at the same time, but also to be able to have different
> settings for each, including date format, currency, fiscal year start and end
> dates, etc.
>
> One company is in the US and one is in Switzerland and I need to use different
> date formats for each, for example.
>
> As of GC 2.4.11 it appears that the date format is set in the GnuCash
> Preferences and I suspect this will affect both companies, is that right? Is
> there a workaround besides using a separate user account on my computer for
> each company? Can I upgrade to 2.6.3 and get around this?
>
> Somewhat related: can I run two different versions of GC at the same time?
> Meaning, can I run my existing company under 2.4.11 but also install and
> (concurrently) run 2.6.3 for the new companies? I'm hesitant to upgrade the
> existing company from 2.4.11 for fear of breaking the invoice printing (which
> was very fiddly to make work in 2.4.11).
>
>

Since you're on a Mac, you can certainly run two versions of GnuCash; it's even
safer with 2.6 than it was with 2.4 as we've gotten rid of the dependency on
dbus and so don't need to make a link in /Library to point to the dbus
executable. Not only that, but it's because they use different preference
systems, so you can change any preference settings on GnuCash 2.6 without
affecting your 2.4 setup. Just rename the old one to Gnucash24.app before
dragging the new one to wherever you keep it. Before launching GnuCash 2.6 you
might want to edit the GNC_DOT_DIR value in Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/Gnucash
to a different value; that way they'll keep separate history lists, which will
make it less likely that you open a file with the wrong version.

Regards,
John Ralls