Accounting advice: No longer tracking an account

[David T.]

Michael,

Sorry. It was obvious to me that I was discussing option number 2—a savings account of her assets in our name due to her minor status. 

After reading your reply and Colin’s, I decided to send the balance to an account similar to Orphan-USD, thus putting the money outside the usual hierarchies. [In my books, I have added a top level “Special Accounts” account into which I put Imbalance-USD, Orphan-USD, and Orphaned Gains-USD, and added an Unspecified account. I will transfer the balance to one of these accounts.]

Thanks for your suggestions. 

David

> On Oct 4, 2015, at 1:25 PM, Mike or Penny Novack <mpnovack at mtdata.com> wrote:
> 
> On 10/3/2015 6:53 PM, David T. wrote:
>> I have a general accounting question to ask. I have been tracking an account for my daughter, who is no longer a minor. Now that she is on her own, I no longer need to track this account. I am not sure about how to remove the account from GnuCash.
>> 
>> Obviously, deleting the account would throw off other accounts in the books. I could simply hide the account in the Chart of Accounts, but that doesn’t seem right. I could zero the balance, but I am not sure which account I would zero it to.
>> 
>> I would welcome suggestions on how best to handle this.
>> 
> What KIND of account it it? Try to describe what you were doing. Which account to zero it to matters.
> 
> Some examples:
> 1) You were tracking an account of monies you were paying out on behalf of your daughter, and you needed to be able to report on this. Now that she is no longer a minor, you are neither required to make these payments nor report them:
> ans: After the end of the reporting period (the last time you need to report this expense, you can hide the account if you want). Even if you didn't do a "close the books" it wouldn't have appeared with a non-zero balance in a subsequent "Income Statement" (aka P&L, Revenue Statement, etc.). If you did do a "close the books" it WOULD have been zeroed out (to equity).
> 
> 2) This is an asset account for monies that were hers but that legally had to be considered yours until her majority.
> ans: In effect, money leaving your possession. Do you have an account for "gifts"? Again, once the balance is zero, won't show on your balance sheet if not sowing zero balance accounts. You can hide.
> 
> The only reason this seems to be a problem is the transition from pen and ink on paper accounting to computerized. In the old days, the new accounting period began new (physical) books. The old journal and ledger books weren't thrown out. Yes, accounts might have been in them not appearing in the new (physical) books.
> 
> Michael
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.