[GNC] 4.9 account set up of going business

Rogier F. van Vlissingen vliscony at gmail.com
Thu Dec 30 16:01:54 EST 2021 

I am sitting here trying that, but in the setup, when you edit the
accounts, it only allows posting of the entire account to "opening
balances." I can't see a way to split it and put the appropriate amount in
Retained Earnings. In the 3.8 version I was able to somehow correct the
balances, I believe with a transfer, but I cannot remember for ssure.

On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 3:52 PM Rogier F. van Vlissingen <vliscony at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It happens to be a loss.
>
> I seem to be missing something. For all the other accounts, I simply post
> to the account with the balancing transaction going to Opening Balances.
> But because of what I described, I get Opening Balances $x and Retained
> Earnings $0. Nothing I can think of gets the money from Opening Balances
> into Retained Earnings.
>
> Or is it that when I set it up, I have to do some split transactions to
> make sure the appropriate amount ends up in Retained Earnings and the
> remainder is Retained Earnings?
>
> Not sure how, but I could give that a try, I will just have to set that up
> all over again.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 3:33 PM <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rogier
>>
>> What is the form of the transaction being used to record the opening
>> balance of the Retained Earnings account. Assuming your business has been
>> profitable and it is not a loss, then the transaction to record its opening
>> balances it  should be something like
>>                                                             Dr
>>    Cr
>> Equity:Opening Balances           xxx
>> Equity: Retained Earnings                             xxx
>>
>> This should reduce the balance of the Retained earnings account while
>> keeping the overall Equity account balance constant.
>>
>> David Cousens
>>
>> On Thu, 2021-12-30 at 15:18 -0500, Rogier F. van Vlissingen wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks, I do not get it. I can set up all the opening balances, except
>> one retained earnings. To me retained earnings on 1/1/2020 is the
>> accumulated position from prior years, I do not see how I can finagle that
>> via what sub accounts. Evidently, when I set up the opening transaction,
>> which is fairly simple, the retained earnings is left at zero, because I
>> cannot access it, and so that difference pops up as part of the opening
>> balance accumulator account, which is therefore too high by the exact
>> amount of the retained earnings.
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 2:52 PM <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Rogier
>>
>>
>> When you transfer account to a new set of books, you would record the
>> opening
>> balances of the Asset and Liability accounts  against the Opening balances
>> entries in Equity.
>>
>> Asset entries will be a debit to the asset account and a credit to the
>> opening
>> balances account and Liabilities a credit to the liability account and
>> debit to
>> the opening balances account in Equity.
>>
>> With this all you previous equity balances have been transferred to the
>> Opening
>> Balances account and the books are balanced. The  Opening Account Balance
>> should
>> equal the total Equity balance in your previous set of books.
>>
>> If you wish to restore the Equity sub-account balances (assuming the
>> accounts
>> have a credit balance in your previous books), you would need to credit
>> the
>> aappropriate Equity sub-account in your new book  for the amount of its
>> balance
>> in the previous set of books and debit the Opening Balances account for
>> the same
>> amount.  This will keep the books balanced.
>>
>> If you restore all the previous books equity sub-account balances, then
>> if your
>> previous set of books was balanced, the Opening Balances account should
>> end up
>> with a 0 balance.
>>
>> As John pointed out, the initial account setup daemon only allows you to
>> set the
>> opening balances for asset and liability accounts. To restore the Equity
>> balances you would need to enter the transactions manually from the
>> Opening
>> Balances register after creating the equity subaccounts initially with
>> zero
>> balances.
>>
>> David Cousens
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 2021-12-30 at 06:33 -0500, Rogier F. van Vlissingen wrote:
>> > Yeah, thanks. I am on mint, and it has version 3.8. I was able to do
>> > something like that in version 3.8. However, I had some problems with
>> it,
>> > and moved to 4.9 now because of some other problems, but now I can't do
>> > this, and that sort of kills the fun.
>> >
>> > Let's see if someone comes up with a better suggestion... hope springs
>> > eternal... and if not, I am moving to another platform.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 12:34 AM William Prescott <
>> will at theprescotts.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > Please disregard.
>> > >
>> > > About a year ago, I set up a new Gnucash data file and chart of
>> accounts.
>> > > I remember making some mistakes setting up the opening balances. I
>> > > recollect having problems changing the Opening Balance entries and
>> having
>> > > to edit the Opening Balances account (from the Accounts tab->Opening
>> > > Balances->Edit) and changing something to make the entries editable.
>> > >
>> > > But I cannot reproduce it now.
>> > >
>> > > Will
>> > >
>> > > On 2021 Dec 29, at 12-29 20:41:13, Rogier F. van Vlissingen <
>> > > vliscony at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Hi, thanks for that, but I cannot find any mechanism to "unlock" a
>> read
>> > > only account, nor does there seem to be anything in the manual about
>> > > "unlocking?" Please clarify.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 9:29 PM William Prescott <
>> will at theprescotts.com
>> > > <mailto:will at theprescotts.com>> wrote:
>> > > I'm not sure if this is relevant …
>> > >
>> > > By default, the Opening Balance account is locked and transactions are
>> > > only created there when you create a new account and give it an
>> opening
>> > > balance. But you can unlock the Opening Balance account and then
>> adjust the
>> > > transactions or add or delete them like in any other account.
>> > >
>> > > Will
>> > >
>> > > On 2021 Dec 29, at 12-29 18:52:16, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us
>> <mailto:
>> > > jralls at ceridwen.us>> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > > On Dec 29, 2021, at 4:08 PM, Rogier F. van Vlissingen <
>> > > vliscony at gmail.com <mailto:vliscony at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> > > > I had previously moved to GnuCash3.8 starting 1/1/2020,
>> unfortunately,
>> > > > there appears to be some sort of corruption in my file.
>> > > >
>> > > > I am now doing it over in 4.9.
>> > > >
>> > > > However, I am having a problem with the Opening Balances for 2020,
>> as I
>> > > > seem to be unable to set up an opening balance for retained
>> earnings.
>> > > >
>> > > > The numbers check out, but everything goes in Opening balances,
>> which is
>> > > > therefore too high by the amount of the retained earnings.
>> > > >
>> > > > You can't even do a transfer.
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > What is to be done?
>> > >
>> > > A business book wouldn't normally have an opening balances account.
>> OTOH
>> > > money is fungible and it doesn't really make sense to divide every
>> asset's
>> > > start-of-year balance between liabilities, paid-in capital, and
>> retained
>> > > earnings, so it's in my mind quite defensible to use Opening Balances
>> to
>> > > accumulate everything. Liabilities are handled by creating normal
>> opening
>> > > balance entries. The New File Hierarchy Assistant doesn't let you make
>> > > opening balance entries in Equity accounts, but you can add
>> transactions to
>> > > RE and whatever you're calling paid-in capital to zero out Opening
>> Balances
>> > > when you've finished with the assistant.
>> > >
>> > > Regards,
>> > > John Ralls
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