[GNC] End of year, how to clone a set of accounts for the new year?

[Chris Green]

On Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 12:27:22PM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> HI,
> 
> On Tue, February 2, 2021 12:07 pm, Chris Green wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 10:12:09AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On Tue, February 2, 2021 10:03 am, Chris Green wrote:
> >> [snip]
> >> > Yes, that works, thanks Derek.  I suppose it's not too onerous as I
> >> > only do it once a year! :-)
> >>
> >> This begs the question:  Why are you doing this?  Why not just backup
> >> the
> >> data file, then run tools -> Close Books to zero out your income/expense
> >> accounts, and then continue on with the same data file?  Why start over
> >> from scratch?
> >>
> > Because having a separate xxx.gnucash file for each year fits much
> > better with my way of working where I have a directory for each year
> > and keep all the documents for one year in the same place.  Thus I
> > have the general accounts, the building fund accounts, copies of
> > GiftAid forms, invoices etc. all in one directory which is easily
> > saved and transportable.
> 
> That kind of archiving makes sense, but I don't see why you need to
> actually start over.  You could keep the existing data as you start the
> new year.  I.e., you could do the equivalent of:
> 
>   copy datafile from 2020/foo.gnucash to 2021/foo.gnucash
> 
Yes, but the last year's data simply confuses things in this year and
doesn't add anything useful IMHO.


> Also keep in mind, GnuCash can also get confused if you have multiple
> files of the same name in different directories.  So the above might cause
> issues with metadata, because both would want to open "foo.gnucash.gcm".
> 
Yes, I know, gnucash is a very odd program in many ways and this is
one of its oddities.  It does really feel sometime as if gnucash
*tries* to be non-standard and not work like most other programs. :-)

Since I'm starting gnucash explicitly with the file name on the
command line it seems to behave OK though.  However I'm quite prepared
to have g2020.gnucash and g2021.gnucash if necessary.


> > It also means I can use the same report format as I don't have to
> > generate a report for each year, the report is always for 'everything
> > in the accounts'.
> 
> I'm not sure what "same report format" means here.
> 
I have, for example, an income report for 2020.  If I want to see the
same report for another year I have to go and explicitly change the
start and end dates, then to get back to the 2020 one I have to put
the 2020 dates back.


> >> GnuCash happily deals with multiple years of data; the reports happily
> >> report for you.
> >
> > Only if you specify the date *every time* you generate the report,
> > unless you copy them when you generate them.
> 
> The default settings work pretty well.  So really, you should rarely have
> to change dates, except when there is something specific you want.  Those
> reports currently default to the current accounting period, which can be
> arbitrary or fixed.
> 
For me that is exceedingly irritating!  The current accounting period
seems to be 'this year' which isn't particularly handy if I want to
see some details from last year.


> For me, I have "Previous Year" Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports
> that I leave open.
> 
You must have a *lot* of 'open' reports then if you ever look at
things for two or three year back.

I find having so many things open just clutters the interface.  With
just one year per instance there aren't nearly so many tabs to search
through when looking for things.

-- 
Chris Green