GNUCASH Free Accounting Software

Sat Feb 3 17:43:33 EST 2018

Bob,

In answer to #1: How do I do a year end statement?

There are several reports you can run at any time, but I’ll presume you are interested in what is known as an ‘Income Statement’ or ‘Profit & Loss’ report. (if you have it set up properly, you can also run a special ‘tax report’ that will show you tax-related transactions for assisting with return filing)

This can be run for any date range, but in this particular case, you want to specify from 1/1/17 to 12/31/17. There are some ‘quick’ options for date ranges that can be useful, in this case, running this report for all of 2017 at present (2018) you’d use ’start of previous year’ to ‘end of previous year’. This setting is in the General section of the options for that report.

You can also run a Balance Sheet report, which is a snapshot of your account balances on a particular date. You’d want that date to be 12/31/17 for this case.

In answer to #2: How do I start a New Year’s set of books?

You don’t necessarily need to and doing so can make accessing previous year’s records cumbersome. You’ll also lose the ability to run some reports after doing so.

In the days of paper records, usually a new set of accounting books was prepared for each year. Special transactions were used to ‘close’ certain accounts like income and expenses by transferring those balances to equity. As part of this process you prepared reports like the Income Statement and Balance Sheet for each accounting period. (usually, monthly, quarterly, and at least yearly) With computers, this artificial limitation does not exist. There are no special transactions needed to produce these reports, or to ‘close the year’ and start fresh. You just continue as you have. You can run an Income Statement report for ANY date range you like at ANY time. If you want to see an Income Statement from January 21st-April 3rd of last year (a non-standard reporting range) you can do that. You can run a Balance Sheet report for any specified date at any time. If you want to see the state of your account balances 3 years ago on August 9th, you can do so. (assuming there were balances in your books back then)

If you really, really, really want to, you can ‘close the books’ at any date just like with paper records. All this accomplishes, is transferring the balances from income and expense accounts to an equity account. (retained earnings) But this then means those income and expense accounts don’t have balances any more, so this affects your reporting abilities. You don’t have to use a different computer file to store each year’s transactions, you just keep using the same one.

Some people do choose to use a new file each year. They perform a ‘close books’ operation, save the file somewhere else, usually a read-only medium like a CD, along with the relevant reports for the year in a PDF format. They then create a new file for the new year.

The downside to taking this route is you lose any ability to run reports for multiple years, or that cross yearly boundaries. (you can’t run a report that covers both the 4th qtr of last year and the 1st quarter of this year, for example) You can always load in that previous year’s file and run reports from there, but that is more cumbersome.

This also answers your 3rd question.

If you don’t ‘close the books’ or don’t start a new file, you always retain access to previous year transactions. If however you archive each year and start anew, you have to load in a previous year file to access those transactions. (and then while that file is open, you can’t access current year transactions until you re-load the current file)

In short, unless you have a real special need for ‘closing the books’ or creating annual files, don’t. Just keep using the same file you are using now. Run reports as desired for the desired dates, or time-frames as needed.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Feb 2, 2018, at 3:48 PM, Bob Lehmann <blehmann1937 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear GnuCash Friends:
> 
> Thank you! It is good of you to "persevere" for me.  I am really
> appreciative, of the Gnucash program ... it is quite similar, in several
> ways to the old Moneycounts program that I used for years, making it easier
> for me to "navigate"  iin this program.  I have version GnuCash 2.6.15 and
> am running it on and ASUS CG8480 computer using Windows 10 Pro 2016 ... It
> has an Intel (R)  Core (TM) i7-377 OK CPU @ 3.50 Ghz ...  the 64 bit
> version with 16 Gig RAM  memory.
> 
> Now, my apologies for not knowing where to route my question and it ending
> up in your spam folder! ... When I didn't hear from you earlier in the New
> Year, I kept struggling to solve the issue (with the help of the manual,
> which I had printed) ... Then one morning, out of the blue, it seemed, I am
> unsure even today, what I might have done ... there, my data was all back
> and everything was normal ... true, I have not been able to print out any
> kind of year-end statements, [probably, because I am a bit afraid to try
> again]  ... and my account entries are just being added onto the previous
> year's entries... At this rate, by 2025 the lists will be pretty long!!!
> ... So ... I am still in need of further help ...
> 
> If you are willing to advise:   1. How do I do a year end statement?
>                                             2. How do I start a New Year's
> set of books?
>                                             3. How do I access last years
> records from the New Year's set of books, if I need to review something?
> 
> Other than this issue, everything has been, SO GOOD, and I thank you, so
> much!
> 
> Yes, in advance, I Thank you so much for the further help.
> Bob
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:33 AM, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Mr Lehmann,
>> 
>> You may need to register for the Gnucash Users list to reply if you
>> haven't already done so.
>> 
>> It is not clear from your brief description what happened.  There is a
>> hint that you are on a Windows OS and if you have been using GnuCash for
>> about a year and you probably have GnuCash release 2.6.something.
>> 
>> One thing that is not clear is whether you are using a recent release of
>> Windows (7 or newer) on a reasonably new computer.  If that is true, you
>> should be able to simply close the program and re-open it and everything
>> will come back.
>> 
>> If you are using a very old computer then it is possible that the system
>> date is not correct or there is some other problem, and you may need a new
>> battery or better yet, a new computer.
>> 
>> We look forward to hearing if you have solved your problem or if you can
>> shed more details.
>> 
>> David C
>> 
>> On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 12:08 PM, Alex Aycinena <alex.aycinena at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Bob Lehmann <blehmann1937 at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 11:29 PM
>>> Subject: GNUCASH Free Accounting Software
>>> To: Alex Aycinena <alex.aycinena at gmail.com>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Dear Sir:
>>> 
>>> I am a senior citizen who used to use Money Counts which was discontinued
>>> years ago but I still ran it on an older windows version for the last few
>>> years.  then I found and have been using GNUCASH for just a year now and
>>> have been very pleased with every aspect.  Now at the turn of this  new
>>> year, I was trying to see if I could print some kind of a Year End
>>> Statement and accidentally and seemingly irreversably
>>> found myself in December 31, 2018 with all of my accounts gone and zeroed
>>> out.
>>> 
>>> I am wondering if you might have some idea of how I can get all of my data
>>> back.  I would so much appreciate it if you would take a bit of time to
>>> respond ... thank you
>>> Bob Lehmann
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Found this in my spam folder and am directing it to
>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>> where it should have been sent in the first place.
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
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