[GNC] 4.9 account set up of going business

Jesse MacDougall macdougall.jesse at gmail.com
Fri Dec 31 08:35:06 EST 2021 

You are right, Rogier.  Entering the Trial Balance from prior years is a
good approach. K.I.S.S.

On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 4:59 AM Rogier F. van Vlissingen <vliscony at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi:
> yes, thanks for all your help.
>
> Yesterday, I figured it out in another thread, and I am sitting here
> feeling stupid, for it turns out the answer was the same as it was in 3.8,
> when I originally set it up there. Namely, do not use the opening balance
> feature in the account setup, but rather, simply create the CofA without
> entering any opening balances and then create a single opening transaction
> in the Journal, to set up all the opening balances, in one multiple split
> transaction. Doing it that way, you can immediately check also with
> Imbalance-USD - if you make any entry mistakes the difference will show, so
> you have an instant check.
>
> That is the solution, so now I have happily moved to V4.9, using the
> flatpak route, since Linux Mint is still stuck at V3.8.
>
> The other mistake I arguably had made was that I entered the whole year in
> one session without exiting after every monthly reconciliation, and as a
> result I had no backups, so that, when those two mystery transactions
> somehow dropped out, I was not in a position to revert to end Nov and just
> do over December. However, it was because another user reported having had
> a similar issue that I made up my mind to move to 4.9 to remove any doubt.
> The active users all seem to be on 4.9 as I see on this list.
>
> I was all childishly simple... once you figure it out.
>
>
> In short, I will now finish both 2020 and 2021 in V4.9 before the year is
> out.
>
> On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 5:09 AM <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Rogier,
> >
> > Both John Ralls and I have posted comments where we have made it clear
> > that you cannot make opening balance entries to the Equity:Retained
> > earnings account from the inital setup dialogue for the CoA. That will
> only
> > allow entries from Asset and Liability accounts to Equity :Openeing
> > Balances. That is by design AFAIK.  I am not sure why that is the case
> but
> > likely the difficulty with programming all possible cases for equity
> > accounts. If your Retained Earnings represents an over all loss then it
> > will have a debit (negative) balance, so the debit and credit entries
> will
> > be reversed from what was described previously
> >
> > If you want to setup the balances for the Equity subaccounts you have to
> > manually enter them from either the Equity:Opening Balances account
> > register or the account register for the specific Equity sub-account you
> > are setting the balance and not from the setup dialogue for the chart of
> > accounts.
> >
> > David Cousens
> >
> > On Thu, 2021-12-30 at 16:01 -0500, Rogier F. van Vlissingen wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > 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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