new year

[elvis]

You really don't need to close the accounts.

I came from an accounting background and wasn't sure about it at first 
but once you get used to it, you won't go back.

If you think about it, the reason people closed off the accounts was 
because they used paper and can't have an infinitely large actual book. 
Not a problem with computers.

If you want a copy as of a date, burn a CD. Then you have an unchangable 
record.

If you need information as it a specific date, run a report, eg a 
balance sheet etc. You can even run a multi - year profit and loss to 
see how you have done over years, try that with a separate file for each 
year :-)

And for example, if I want to see how much a car has cost me in repairs 
over the last five years, I just look at the account and it is all there.

Accounting information is meant to be there to help the business, not 
force it to bend to the way of the accounting program :-)

Give it a go, you might be surprised!




On 09/11/15 12:06, Gary Holtum wrote:
>>> BTW, you probably meant "in all but expense AND income accounts".<<
> You are correct. That is what I meant. Thanks for the correction.
>
> I guess "close the books" does nothing about migrating balances to new year
> accounts. I will have to do things differently or find another program.
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user
> [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+diamondhranchqh=earthlink.net at gnucash.org] On
> Behalf Of Mike or Penny Novack
> Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2015 2:44 PM
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: new year
>
> On 11/8/2015 1:06 PM, Gary Holtum wrote:
>> Is there a way to close this year's file and start a new year (new
>> file) carrying over balances in all but the expense accts?
>>
>> Gary
>>
> Look up "close the books". That is the traditional way to do accounting, and
> gnucash has a facility for automating the process. Of course casual users
> will probably not bother, since gnucash can produce the usual reports as if
> books had been closed. BTW, you probably meant "in all but expense AND
> income accounts". Accounts of type income and expense are actually
> "temporary" accounts of fundamental type equity. What "close the books" is
> doing is closing them to equity.
>
> I strongly suggest that if you do "close the books" you make a backup copy
> of the books immediately before and immediately after so that in the future
> you can easily rerun reports.
>
> Michael
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