Balance Forward from previous year and closing books

[Theresa]

Thank you Michael.  I was able to print a beautiful transaction report that
I'm sure would be OK for any other accountant but mine.  She wants the
report to show a Balance Forward from the previous year.  Is that possible
with this report?

Also, I tried to close the books as you suggested - first I made a copy,
then tried to close as of our close date, but the file didn't appear to
change.  Also, I was confused by the options to choose Equity, Equity
Opening Balances, Equity Retained Earnings or New.  Where can I learn more
about those settings/options?

Thanks again,

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike or Penny Novack [mailto:stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2014 6:45 PM
To: Theresa
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: General Ledger Dump and Year End Closing


The report you are looking for goes by the gnucash name "transaction
report". Set the start and end dates for the year you want (and yes, in
does monthly totals)

>2.  How does one "close the books for the year"?
>Thanks in advance for any input you can give.  Theresa
>
>
>
You don't actually have to do this as gnucash can produce the necessary
report without. But if you accountant does want you to do this (and it
can be nice when the balances shown for the (temporary) income and
expense accounts are JUST the balance of transactions for the current
period) you can use the "close the books feature". That you didn't do it
yet (for last year) isn't a problem as you can set the date (close as of
date X).

What I usually do IF what one of my organizations wants this is FIRST
make a (backup) copy of the books after all the transactions for the
prior year are in, then close the books (as of that same last dater) and
rename the file for the coming year. That's what I do in the LOGICAL
sense because I actually do the reverse. That's because the current file
already had the right year name. So I make a copy named for the new year
and close that (before entering any transactions of that new year). Can
be a bit more involved, first make sure all the EXTERNAL transactions of
the prior year have been entered, then enter the INTERNAL adjusting
entries (like depreciation, etc.), then make the copy that will be the
new year's books and run the close operation on that << please note, I
have never actually used the built in gnucash "close the books", doing
it the old fashioned way instead (manually) as that forces me to see all
the accounts and I can decide if they will still be in use the following
year >>

Michael D Novack.