[GNC] Why I create a new datafile each year for GnuCash

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Oct 21, 2019 w43d294, at 12:40 PM, D <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Um, the dictionary definition of a "trial balance" is "a statement of all debits and credits in a double-entry account book, with any disagreement indicating an error." It is, by definition, a report "as of" a given time that includes all transactions up to that date.

I’m well aware of that. But if you’ve already determined those transactions balanced from a previous year/period, there is little use to having GnuCash burn through cycles computing that fact all over again for the current period. (I’m not saying there isn’t *any* use, just not one that most users are going to need) Even with pen and paper, you’re starting with the historical periods being summarized in an aggregated transaction. You don’t go back and compute them all over again. And with respect to Income and Expenses, you don’t even factor the past in at all with manual methods because those got closed to Equity. Why should GnuCash? (maybe such an enhancement would only be paired with a date-based read-only preference, or when the Close Books procedure is used.)

The Balance Sheet is a similar type report.

Maybe the problem is the Trial Balance report code as Balance sheets don’t seem to take long. I just ran each one on a book that goes back to 2016, with hundreds if not a thousand or so transactions. (is there a way to get a count?)

The Balance sheet showed up in less than a second.

The Trial Balance took 21 seconds. (I didn’t use a stop watch, I just watched my desktop clock tick by, so not very scientific, but enough of a spread to be an issue)

Both tally everything from all transactions and then present various aggregate organizations.

Why is one so quick and the other 21+ times slower?

Regards,
Adrien