GNU cash 2.4.11 trial balance bug?

[Michael Hendry]

> On 15 Mar 2015, at 17:42, CCAAT <ccaat at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 03/15/2015 09:00 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
>> If there IS a bug in the trial balance feature, should of course be fixed.
>> 
>> However there is the matter of how we might use a "trial balance" when
>> using computerized accounting software. Now I learned in the old days
>> when it was pen and ink on paper so I know what a trial balance is, why
>> it was done, and the sorts of human introduced errors it helped you find
>> (and so correct) before going to the next step of preparing reports.
>> Checkpoints of this sort were very important in the days of pen and ink
>> on paper.
>> 
>> But computerized accounting systems are different. They simply will not
>> allow entry of out of balance transactions and will never make an error
>> transcribing numbers from one place to another. So assuming you have
>> already checked to make sure that there is nothing in "Imbalance" or
>> "Orphan", how are you making use of a "trial balance"? After all, it
>> WILL be in balance, no trial about it.
> 
> I had 63K in consulting fees in 2012. I had zero income from consulting
> in 2013 and 2014. I limited the dates for 2014 only. The trial balance
> report still shows 63K. You tell me if that is a problem, accounting or
> software wise. If by definition the trial balance is always aggregated
> (cummulative) then why are we allowed to select periods?
> 
> No other errors have occurred in the 2.4.11 gnucash in my usag; granted
> my business usage is so simple it would be most faster to do everything
> by hand. But that speaks to this being a bug, since the entire journal
> for 3 years, is less that 10 pages (8.5 x 11). Although I'm not an
> accountant, (Computer Scientist), I have had (2) old school accountants
> and one recent (4.0) graduate with his CPA already, tell me it is a
> problem. I look forward to your opinion.
> 
> 
> James
> 

Have you “closed” your accounts at each year end?

I suspect not - this is why you have income carried over into the current year from previous years.

As Mike Novack has indicated, a Trial Balance isn’t needed in a computerised accounting system, because the computer doesn’t make the errors that human bookkeepers make.

Although it is possible to set the date options in the Trial Balance report, experiments suggest that the start date is always the start of the year before the report date you have chosen.

What information are you trying to get from the Trial Balance report? Wouldn’t it be better obtained from a different report? (e.g. Balance Sheet or Profit and Loss). 

(I am not an accountant either…).

Michael

> 
>> 
>> Michael D Novack
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