[GNC] Inserting the Beginning Balances of Accounts in Gnucash

[Peter S. Shenkin]

I recently made a query here about the Gnucash "Close Books" facility. It
was only about a week ago. The original poster  might like to look at the
responses, because they seem relevant here.

-P.

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 9:49 PM David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com>
wrote:

> Hi Jose,
>
> The process of adding the opening balances in a new book for you asset and
> liability accounts should create the value of the total equity from your
> previous set of books in equity so your total equity should be correct and
> it will be the sum of all the transactions to the Equity:Opening Balances
> account at this point.
>
> You want to have the appropriate balances in the equity sub accounts
> corresponding to the closing balances for those accounts in your previous
> set of books. As the total of Equity should already match, you can only
> achieve this by transferring the amount of the closing balance in the
> previous book for a specific Equity sub account to that account from the
> Equity:Opening Balances account in the new book.
>
> For example if when you closed your previous set of books the
> Equity:Retained Earnings balance was a  positive or credit balance of $1000
> you would have to create a transaction in your new books as follows
>
> Equity:Opening Balances   Dr 1000
> Equity:Retained Earnings                 Cr 1000
>
> to effect this transfer. (If the equity account had a negative or debit
> balance, you would exchange the debits and credits). This will ensure you
> will not double count your equity.
>
> I think from memory the opening balances tool in the new book setup will
> not
> allow you to enter these transactions between equity sub accounts and the
> Equity: Opening Balances account. I am not sure of this though as I haven't
> tested it. If it doesn't, then you will have to create the transactions as
> above  manually either in the Equity:Opening Balances register or in the
> register for the equity account you for which you wish to set the initial
> balance.
>
> David Cousens
>
>
>
> -----
> David Cousens
> --
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