Closing Accounts

[Colin Law]

On 20 February 2016 at 21:12, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The Hidden option for an account hides display in the Chart of Accounts page (which can be un-hidden from View->Filter By->Other and clicking Show Hidden Accounts). The hidden account continues to appear in the Transfer field drop down in registers.
>
> The Placeholder setting makes an account read only, and has the secondary effect of removing the account from the above-mentioned drop down list. Once it is read-only, you cannot add transactions to the register (although for some reason you can delete them). In addition, an account that is set as a placeholder will not open from the chart of accounts when you double click it. You have to click the Open button.
>
> As for re-arranging your accounts, you can do this pretty efficiently using the Delete Account option. GnuCash gives you the option of designating a new account for the transactions. So, deleting Income->2014, you could tell GnuCash to put the transactions into Income, or Income->MyNewIncomeAccount, or whatever.

But do make sure your backups (which of course you already take
regularly) are up to date before doing this.  If you accidentally
merge it into the wrong account in it is very difficult to get back to
where you were.

Just to repeat the point I regularly make about backups, make sure
that the backup is actually saving what you need.  Make sure you can
open the accounts from the backup.  It is not at all uncommon for
people to think they are religiously backing up, only to find that
when they actually need it a critical file or files is missing.