[GNC] Incorrect starting balance for 2019

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Mon Feb 10 12:48:54 EST 2020


The carpenter’s rule I learned was, “Measure twice, cut once.” Those other two rules, while true, produce lots of waste in materials and time. All three lend credence to the maxim, “You can have it right, or right now, but not both."

---

But to the question, yes, you can simply change the opening balance transaction in the register for that account. You can also do it from the 'Equity:Opening Balances' account. Opening transactions are just simple transactions between the account in question and ‘Equity:Opening Balances’.

Of course, this will alter your balances in that account for the entire history of the book, but that is what you want to do.

If some period had worked out correctly before the edit, that means you had an error in that period. (because the opening balance was wrong, the ending balance should be wrong also, if it wasn’t, that means another error was present.)

After the edit, start reconciling one period at a time and *then* print reports. (You printed reports for non-reconciled periods? How did you know the were correct?)

Regards,
Adrien

> On Feb 9, 2020 w7d40, at 11:05 PM, Richard Danielson <rdan217 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I moved my accounting from Simply Accounting 7 (something) on Win 7 to GC 2.6.19 on ubuntu linux back in January/19.  For starting balances I used my trial balance from 2018 on Simply Accounting to get the values for Jan 1/19 on GC.  I subsequently worked like a bionic beaver to do all my accounting for the year.
> 
> Unfortunately, at this very late point in time, I discovered that I started the year with an incorrect total on one of my asset accounts.  If possible, would like to edit this starting amount for Jan 1/19 so that things work out correctly afterward and all the way up to the end of the year.
> 
> Being suspicious of my actions I waited to reconcile any bank or credit card accounts, so if it is possible to just change the starting balance on that one account, I will happily re-print all of my monthly reports and reconcile everything which should be reconciled before going into 2020.
> 
> All my life, I have followed the carpenter's rule - "There is always time to do a job twice....if you screw up, you have to do it again."  Of course, there is always at least one exception, for example - "If you cut a board too short, then cut it again!"
> 
> Can someone tell me whether in this case, the rule holds or does the exception hold?   Thanks.
> 
> Rick



More information about the gnucash-user mailing list