[GNC] customers and vendors opening balances

[lebyarules]

hi all

i have gnucash 3.5 and its beautiful :D
i have searched all over for an answer relating to previous year balances,
could you please confirm if i am on the right track. 

firstly, a friend of mine is an accountant and we run a business. i have his
financials from excel and i am basically seeing if i can achieve the same
yearly financials within gnucash (1 March 2018 - 28 February 2019). Do you
think this is a good alternative way to learn? 

secondly, i have read that any opening/previous balances from last year with
customers or vendors should be entered through an invoice. so i enter the
exact customers invoice (dated 27 feb 2018) from the last month of the
previous financial year, and it has lots of products on the invoice. i post
and i then have to do a credit note for the customer to match the exact
balance owing from prev year as the customer pays random amounts. the credit
note now wants me to choose an income account, but which one? i am unsure
which product i am crediting because the amount is random and in theory no
product is returned. so should i create and use a new income account and
call it income:previous balance?

example: on my bookkeeping software the customer owes $700 on 28 Feb 2018
(previous financial year). 
-customer was invoiced for goods of $1000 on 27feb 2018.  i do an invoice
for $1000 in gnucash.
-but customer had a credit of $300 in jan 2018. so i do credit note for $300
in gnucash. 
i am now bringing forward the correct amount of $700 in gnucash.


here is the next confusing part. i have created my accounting period start
and end dates and filtered/chosen my year dates for all the accounts but my
income accounts always combine with last years opening balance.

also, on eugile balance sheet, it also shows last years opening balance
combined with current year. i have tried to select different sheet dates, i
have tried to select end of this year, end of previous year, end of
accounting period but it never shows the current year amount. i really wish
we could select a start and end date on this report. 

however, on the income statement report, income accounts reflect the true
amount like my accountant has it on excel. so is this correct? is eugile
balance sheet and income statement meant to show different figures just
because of a previous opening income balance from last year?
its the same for my expenses too, both reports show a different amount.   

thirdly, in my checking account, if i assign a transaction as a payment,
gnucash automatically changes the description of the bank statement to a
customer/vendor name. the descriptions from my bank statements now don't
match with gnucash transactions, is this okay or will it confuse an
accountant?

thanks a lot






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