closing entries throw off estimated budget values

[Mike or Penny Novack]

> If you look through past threads on the mailing-list you’ll see that there has often been discussion about whether there’s any real need to close accounts at all.
>
> There’s no reason why you shouldn’t close the accounts (essentially zeroing the expense and income accounts at the year end by making transfers to equity), produce the reports that require closure of the accounts, and then delete these year-end transactions before setting up your budgets. You can close the accounts again afterwards if you want to.
It is simpler than that.

After the final (actual) transaction make a backup copy of the file. 
Give it a name like precloseyyyymmdd.

Do your "close the books". Make another backup copy of the file. Give 
it  a name like postcloseyyyymmdd.

Pick the correct file when producing the "budget estimate". Depending on 
what you then want to do with it, you may end up doing an 
export/import.  I don't use the gnucash budgeting features and so don't 
know what might be involved moving budgets year to year, etc.

Michael