Tr : Year end options

[Buddha Buck]

Hi Ken, Alain,

You should be aware of the limitations of the "close the books"
functionality. What it does is makes a transaction that transfers the
current (as of date of closing) balance of the income and expense accounts
to an equity account. This makes the current balance of the income and
expense accounts 0, so the CoA balance in those accounts is the
accumulation since the last time the books were closed.

What it does not do is remove or lock the older transactions. It is still
possible, once the "books are closed" on last year, to add new
transactions, edit old ones, or rerun reports that reference those accounts.

Closing the books can also lead to problems with certain reports. For
instance, the "Income Statement" report computes the change in the balance
in income and expense accounts between two specified dates -- how much did
Income::Sales change between January 15th and February 15th, for instance.
If you have been getting $10K/month in sales for the past 8 years, it's
likely that your Income::Sales balance on Jan15 is about $960K, and on
Feb15 $970K, for a reported sales income of $10K during that period. But if
you closed the books on 1st of February, then the same report would list a
sales income of around $-955K, which is a bit off.

Traditionally, the standard accounting practice was to close the books at
the end of every reporting period, the book-closing transaction would serve
as the basis of the income statement for that period, and never try to do
income statements which crossed period boundaries. Some people use GnuCash
that way; others appreciate the flexibility of being able to generate
reports between any two dates.



On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:13 AM Alain Dormoy <cageda at bbox.fr> wrote:

> I am using an old version of GC: 2.4.11.
> I guess I'll also need direction to install the latest version (do I have
> to
> *uninstall* the old one first or do I install the new one over the old?)
>
> TIA for your help.
> Alain
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> De : "Alain Dormoy" <cageda at bbox.fr>
> Date : jeudi 2 mars 2017 11:08
> À : <kenslists at teksavvy.com>; <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Objet : Re : Year end options
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > Sorry I'm reacting a bit late.
> > This is exactly what I've bean meaning to ask.
> > I've been using GC for 8 years now and I'd like to keep only the entries
> > of the current year and say the former or the two former readily
> > available, with all the rest saved separately in a place I can access
> them
> > if (unlikely) I need them.
> > From what you guys are saying it seems GC can do that. Can you give the
> > procedure  pls?
> >
> > Alain
> > Paris, FR
> >
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------
> > De : "Ken Heard" <kenslists at teksavvy.com>
> > Date : samedi 18 février 2017 14:07
> > À : <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> > Objet : Year end options
> >
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> Hash: SHA1
> >>
> >> On 2017-02-18 18:40, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> >>> On 2/18/2017 4:53 AM, Ken Heard wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> GnuCash does not have an annual transfer of balances in revenue
> >>>> and expense accounts to a profit and loss account.  If it did
> >>>> these accounts could be safely deleted.
> >>>>
> >>> It does if you want it to. Just because most of us are not doing a
> >>> "close the books" operation does not mean that gnucash does not
> >>> support this << either manually** or with the built in "close"
> >>> facility >>
> >>
> >> Thank you, I was not aware of that feature, or if I had been I
> >> completely forgot about it -- likely at my age.  Using it one could
> >> save the whole ledger year by year, and "close the books" every 1st
> >> January.  In this way the the current year working ledger would not
> >> grow too big, and so simplify its backup.  Closed years showing the
> >> state of the ledger as of every 31st December would always be
> >> available if needed.
> >>
> >> Regards, Ken Heard
> >>
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> >> iEYEARECAAYFAlioRwkACgkQlNlJzOkJmTeCggCeLuGVHXS7iF0GnQ+Yl3bTKf51
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