Year end issues

[Jack Whyte]

Thanks Ken

I wrote a reply before reading yours!

The file is very large and unwieldy already - are there any limits on the
file size?  One of the impacts is also that each time I update the file at
least one copy is made - the folder on my MAC for December grew to >130MB.

JACK

On 15 January 2018 at 16:11, Ken Pyzik <pyz01 at cox.net> wrote:

> David -- Excellent point.  To expand upon it let's demonstrate this:
>
> At 12/31/2017 -- you have balances in all your accounts -- for brevity,
> will just use one real simple example:
>
> At 12/31/2017 -  let's assume the checking account has a balance of $500.
>  If you eliminate all 2017 transactions, the balance would be different --
> as it would be the balance as of the end of 2016 (since the net effect of
> all of the 2017 transactions would have been eliminated).   Now let's say
> at the end of 2016, the balance of the checking account was $1200 (i.e., as
> a result of all the transactions for 2017, the net effect was a -$700).
> But you eliminated the transactions so the starting balance is now $1200 --
> but that is not what your starting balance was on 1/1/2018.
>
> So, one could isolate all the 2017 transactions -- place them in 2017
> accounts -- calculate the net effect of all of those transactions on each
> account -- plug "net-effect-transactions" to the existing accounts with
> contra (balancing transactions) to "other balancing / opening balances
> adjustments account" and in effect do what you want.  But the labor to do
> this would probably be more than just doing as David has said -- start a
> new file for 2018.
>
> Finally, if you really want to isolate 2017 - you could set up "checking
> account-2017 " and then another "checking account -2018' as 2 separate
> accounts and start charging the new expenses, etc. to the new 2018
> account.  But again - this has a tendency to double all your accounts.
> That is why the reporting mechanism in there.   You can have continuous
> accounts, and isolate, for reporting, a number of transactions for any
> given period (a month, a year, a calendar year, a fiscal year, a 6-30 to
> 6-30 time period, etc.)
>
> Hope that helps and did not confuse the subject.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+pyz01=cox.net at gnucash.org]
> On Behalf Of David T. via gnucash-user
> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 7:39 AM
> To: Jack Whyte <jvwhyte at gmail.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Year end issues
>
> No, there isn’t. The Close book feature simply creates a transaction that
> zeroes out your income and expense accounts as of a given date.
>
> In a double entry accounting system, if you delete the expense side of the
> transaction, what do you suggest doing for the Checking account side? If
> you are desperate to clear out older transactions, you will most likely
> have to create a new file with a new set of opening balances. See
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Closing_Books <https://wiki.gnucash.org/
> wiki/Closing_Books>
>
> Of course, many people prefer to keep historical transactions, and use
> reports to extract subsets of their file as needed.
>
> David
>
> > On Jan 15, 2018, at 8:03 PM, Jack Whyte <jvwhyte at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi there
> >
> > I have used GNU Cash for a number of years to monitor my personal
> finances.   I have just run the Tools > Close book function to clear down
> all my expense & income account balances as at 31/12/17 however I seem to
> have transactions in all of these accounts going back, in some cases, to
> 2009/2010.
> >
> > Can someone please advise me if there is a straightforward mechanism to
> delete all transactions in these accounts - say, up to and including
> 31/12/2016 as I am concerned the file, currently at around 1.3MB, will
> become unwieldy and unmanageable.
> >
> > Thanks & regards
> > Jack
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