How To Close Out The Year

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/7/2015 11:36 AM, John Donnee wrote:
> Thanks, i did finally find it yet it kind of recommends not to close the books out that the system really takes care of that. Closing the books might make reporting wrong.
>
>
> John Donnee
I think you might be misinterpreting both things. Gnucash can produce 
the usual reports (as if books had been closed) without the books having 
been closed. But there are reasons why some of us might want to actually 
close the books. Some precautions:

1) Make a preclosing backup (copy of file). In case you find you have to 
go back and redo year end (say you spaced doing the depreciation 
adjustments) you can restore that.
2) If you are running the "Income Statement" do that before closing!. In 
other words, you should do the reports the same way the folks who aren't 
bothering to close the books would.
3) Close the books. After this I'd run the Balance Sheet again to 
compare to the one run before closing. I'd then make the postclosing 
backup copy*.

Michael

* Since I am doing this as the treasurer of organizations, I'd make 
multiple copies sending one out of my personal control (into the custody 
of another officer of the organization). That is more reliable security 
against alteration of books than passwords, etc.