[GNC] Opening Balance on Reports

[Paul Kroitor]

Hello, and happy New Year to all of you using whatever the name is for the calendar that just started the year 2020!

I am trying to produce an annual statement for a counter-party with whom we have a current account. It's set up in GnuCash as a liability account, as generally the balance is in their favour.

In 2018, which was the first year the account was open, it was easy: I made a simple report - a modified Transaction Report - that listed all the transactions, and a total. But for 2019, I am having a problem creating it, because it should start with the opening balance (the total at the end of the 2018 report) and then run forward from there. The only way I can see to have the prior balance is to include all historical transactions (or as per the Ps. below).

In Quicken (for example), a register report will always have an "Opening Balance" line which will be the total of all the transactions prior to the start date of the report. But I cannot find any way to achieve the same result in GnuCash. Am I missing something?

Thanks as always for all thoughts,
Paul

[PS: I know I could move the total liability to somewhere else on Dec 31st, and then move it back on Jan 1st - a sort of a manual book closing, but for a liability rather than income / expenses - but these seems tedious and error-prone. However, I'll use this work-around if there's no way to achieve it programmatically.]