beginning balance of income and expense accounts

[Dale Alspach]

In that case your first entry should be income total from the start of
the accounting year to Sept. 30 and you should be doing the analogous
thing for all accounts. ( I am assuming that your accounting year
started on January 1 or some other date prior to Sept. 30.) By doing
this you will be establishing the status of all accounts at the time you
quit using Microsoft Money. I suggest ignoring the Opening Balance
account net value. Instead concentrate on getting each account to have
the correct balance as of Sept. 30, i.e., to agree with Microsoft Money
(up to any restructuring of the accounts), before you begin entering
post Sept. 30 transactions. I know nothing about Microsoft Money but I
assume you can get an income-expense (profit-loss) report and a balance
sheet as of Sept. 30. Running the same reports in gnucash should help
you check your starting point.

Dale

On 03/24/2018 04:51 PM, lnorden at mchsi.com wrote:
> I wasn't starting at the beginning of the year.
> I stopped using Microsoft Money as of September, and have been fighting Quicken but recently realized it doesn't use a double entry system.  so I was hoping to start at 9-30 to be able to calculate net income for 2017.  I'd like to calculate 2017 net income if possible.    
>   
> When I set up my Income and Expense categories, it gave me the option to establish an opening balance.  But offset Equity.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+lnorden=mchsi.com at gnucash.org> On Behalf Of Dave H
> Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2018 3:33 PM
> To: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: beginning balance of income and expense accounts
> 
> Aha good question Adrien, mine also only has Asset and Liabilities in the Opening Balances :-)
> 
> Cheers Dave H.
> 
> On 25 March 2018 at 06:29, Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> How do you have an opening balance for income or expenses at the 
>> beginning of the year? You haven’t earned or spent anything yet.
>>
>> You should be starting off with opening balances for assets and 
>> liabilities. Then as you earn and spend, the net of those newer 
>> entries are virtually calculated as ‘retained earnings/losses’ unless 
>> or until you close the books with an official entry to equity. (which 
>> is neither necessary, or necessarily desirable in Gnucash)
>>
>> Income should be balanced with debits to an asset(where the money went 
>> to), not equity.
>> Expenses should be balanced with credits to an asset(where the money 
>> came from), not equity.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Adrien
>>
>>> On Mar 24, 2018, at 3:09 PM, Lori Norden <lnorden at mchsi.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am starting Gnucash in the beginning of the year.  As I’m entering 
>>> the
>> beginning balance for each income and expense account, a transfer is 
>> being made to my Equity Opening Balance account.
>>>
>>> For income beginning balance entries – credits income; debits Equity
>> Opening Balance
>>> For expense beginning balance entries – debits expense, credits 
>>> Equity
>> Opening Balance
>>>
>>> The problem is my Equity is reduced by the amount of net income I 
>>> made
>> as of the beginning date, but should be increased.
>>>
>>> Should I be offsetting the beginning balances for income and expense 
>>> to
>> something other than Equity Opening Balance?  That’s what I thought 
>> the instructions indicated I should do.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help
>>>
>>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>>>
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