new year

[Gary Holtum]

Sounds like this is exactly what I want. I think I finally get it. I want
the new year to start with zero balances in income and expense accounts and
prior year ending balances as new year starting balances for all other
accounts (checking, credit card, etc. ).
Thanks for your guidance.
Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike or Penny Novack [mailto:mpnovack at mtdata.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2015 11:10 AM
To: Gary Holtum
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: new year

On 11/8/2015 9:06 PM, 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
You are ignoring the possibility of simple additional steps giving you
exactly what you seem to want. Even in the old days of pen and ink on paper
accounting they did not necessarily migrate to clean, empty physical
volumes. They could just draw lines in the ledger and go to clean pages. Or
in some cases use fresh books (the journal, the cash account, etc) and for
others continue in the same physical ledger books till filled. I learned
bookkeeping before the days of the computer << OK, the largest businesses
had them already, but nobody else >>

Using gnucash.........

a) At the end of the accounting period, BEFORE doing close the books, make a
COPY of the file. Name it "Pre-close Year xxxx".
b) Close the books. Make a copy of the file. Name it "Post-close Year xxxx"
c) Rename your file "Books Year xxxx+1"  (you are starting our with all your
"standing" accounts and all income and expense accounts with zero balances).
d) For security and guarantee against changes being made to earlier years'
entries, burn copies and give out of your control (can be used to verify
changes have not been made) << I am treasurer of some organizations ---
personal books might not need such safeguards >>

Now if "c" ISN'T what you meant by "migrating balances to new year account"
you need to explain what you find wrong. I can think of a couple
possibilities, but please save us from having to guess.


Michael D Novack