[GNC] Book setup

[David Cousens]

Rogier,

You can add an opening balance transaction at any time. The opening balance
tool just provides a convenient way of doing it. If the opening balance
transactions initially entered prove to be incorrect they can also be
edited. 

The function of Retained Earnings in Equity is to receive the nett profit of
the business that has been recorded in detail in the temporary Income and
Expense accounts when they are closed to equity at the end of the financial
accounting period.  If you are starting a new book, then there are no
balances in the Income and Expenses accounts to be closed to Retained
Earnings. In GnuCash the report calculations  will generally include the
amounts from Income and Expense accounts for the specified period

In the previous set of books, the Income and Expense accounts presumably
will have been closed to Equity annually which has resulted in the balance
you wish to carry forward. When you enter the balances you are carrying
forward for the assets and liabilities, the opening balance amounts added in
Equity will have automatically have included what was the Retained earnings
balance from the previous set of books. 

You cannot create an opening balance for an equity account at account
creation because it would duplicate 
what has already been recorded in the opening balances and as you have
discovered you cannot create an opening balance for an equity account at
creation.

The only way you can create a Retained Earnings account with its  balance as
in the previous set of books is to manually create a transfer from The
Opening Balances (debit) account to the Retained Earnings (credit) account
in the new set of books as I described in a previous post. Note the debits
and credits in this transaction will be in the reverse sense to those in the
Opening Balances account when you created the Asset accounts and entered
their opening balances but will be the same sens as the entries produced
when the Liability accounts.

There should be no need to delete the Retained Earnings account if you have
already created it. Open the account register and add a manual transaction
at the date you opened the books as described in my previous post and above. 

David



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David Cousens
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