Alternate Accounting Period for Reports

[Wm]

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:58:46 <sjmvbk8j1vd.fsf at securerf.ihtfp.org>  Derek
Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU>

>Hi,
>
>MythX <jason at sheeponamission.com> writes:
>
>> Hi, I use GnuCash for my personal finances, nothing fancy.  I recently
>> started using the reports though and am running into a bit of a problem.  I
>> get paid once a month, usually the last day of the month, sometimes a couple
>> days prior to that.  Direct deposit rules around weekends and holidays throw
>> it off.
>>
>> Anyway, that paycheck I receive on 1/31/2015 will pay bills and such for the
>> month of February.  What I'd like to do, is start my month on the 25th of
>> the previous month, with the last day happening on the 24th of that month.
>> In the above example 2/2015, that month would go from 1/25/2015 to
>> 2/24/2015.

Has it occurred to you [not you, Derek], a person wanting specific days
in a month, that M/D/Y is just about the least intelligent way of
ordering a year number, a month number and a day number ?

>> Is there a way to set it such that when I set a report period to start on
>> "1st day of previous month", and end "last day of previous month" it's aware
>> of my alternate month?  My alternative is just to go into the report
>> hardcode the start & end dates of the report, but I have to update them each
>> month.
>
>Sorry, no.  A month is a calendar month.
>
>If you want other dates you need to specify them specifically.

An example being using report settings to use

        Start of accounting period
and
        End of accounting period

and then using

Edit / Preferences / Accounting period / Absolute

to set whatever period you want and then reloading the reports and doing
what you will with them.

Using this basic method arbitrary periods can be easily reported on.

I'm surprised Derek didn't think of that when replying.  Not a dig, more
a comment on how gnc is implemented in quite easy ways that seniors may
not think of.

-- 
Wm...