[GNC] Account setup

Rogier F. van Vlissingen vliscony at gmail.com
Tue Sep 28 13:16:51 EDT 2021 

Thanks to everyone for helping out.

What worked for me in the end was

   1. to set up the COA first, without attempting any opening balances, and
   then
   2. to create a single transaction to set up the opening balances on
   1/1/2020.

As it was, I had an ending trial balance on 12/31/2020, but there were a
few mistakes floating around, so in my setup, I made those corrections, and
settled it against retained earnings, by making that the final line item in
my opening transaction.


   - One thing I was not able to figure out. If I do set up this way, and I
   made a mistake in my initial g/l transaction is there a way to edit that
   transaction, or am I doomed to simply start over and do it the right way?
   - And since I made a false starts, I now have a couple of sets of books
   that I want to get rid of, but I wasn't sure how to do it, other than just
   deleting the file in the file system.

I actually used gnucash once years ago, and I am happy we have seen
significant development since then.

The reason I switched back to it this time is because this was the 2nd time
I had bad experience with QB, and in actual fact it was overkill for a
small business anyway. I was forced into it because of a bookkeeper who
seemed to be comfortable with QB only. In the end, the problem was she
"knew" QB, but not accounting. When I had my problem with them in 2019,
there were two features which my bookkeeper had used inadvertently neither
one of which worked as advertised. One was a loan amortization which seemed
to expense the principal repayments instead of the interest. In the end I
got so fed up with them that I dumped the whole thing, and decided to go
back to Gnucash for this venture, and it just took me this long, because my
taxes are now due, and I have not had a lot of activity during the
pandemic. But it's done now, and thanks to everyone for the help.

On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 10:16 PM <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rogier,
>
> Retained Earnings is an equity account so a retained earnings balance is
> recorded against equity itself as follows if your past retained earnings
> were a
> net profit (credit or +ve balance in your pevious set of accounts). If a
> net
> loss (debit or -ve balance_ then the debit and credit would be reversed
>                                             Dr       Cr
> Equity:Opening Balances:Retained Earnings    xxx
> Equity:Retained Earnings                              xxx
>
>
>
> You could equally well not transfer the individual equity sub account
> balances
> and just transfer the total opening balance for Equity to your new set of
> books
> and leave the balance at 0 for Equity:Retained Earnings and other sub
> accounts
> except where you have a specific need for the detail since the
> Retained earnings net balance contains no detail of the previous individual
> years profit loss contributions to equity in any case.
>
> This will all be contained in your previous set of books and the newly
> opened
> set of books will contain that detail forward from the date the new books
> were
> opened.
> David Cousens
>
> On Wed, 2021-09-22 at 16:21 -0400, Rogier F. van Vlissingen wrote:
> > OH, thanks
> >
> > Yeah, I already proceeded, I filled in the opening balances where I
> could,
> > and am now starting to create the other accounts which did not exist in
> the
> > standard chart of accounts, but trying to go and edit "retained
> earnings" I
> > do not see how I can add the opening balance.
> >
> > it's not too many accounts in all, probably 25 total.
> >
> > So, if I create that opening balance as a transaction e.g. for retained
> > earnings, where does the balancing transaction go? I guess I am not God's
> > greatest gift to the bookkeeping profession ;-)
> >
> > <
> >
> http://rogierfentenervanvlissingen.me?promo=email_sig&utm_source=product&utm_medium=email_sig&utm_campaign=gmail_api&utm_content=thumb
> > >
> > Rogier Fentener van Vlissingen <http://rogierfentenervanvlissingen.me>
> >
> > <
> >
> http://rogierfentenervanvlissingen.me?promo=email_sig&utm_source=product&utm_medium=email_sig&utm_campaign=gmail_api&utm_content=thumb
> > >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 4:00 PM Stephen M. Butler <
> > Stephen.M.Butler51 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Roger,
> > >
> > > I found it easier to leave all the opening balances at zero while
> > > setting up the chart of accounts (COA).  Then I create one massive
> > > opening transaction dated (in your case) 12/31/2019.
> > >
> > > That way, if I find I forgot one account, I can add it later then go
> > > back and adjust the opening transaction to include an entry for that
> new
> > > account (I know the purist will have nightmares and would prefer you
> add
> > > a new transaction).
> > >
> > > --Steve
> > >
> > > On 9/22/21 12:43 PM, Rogier F. van Vlissingen wrote:
> > > > I am struggling to move an existing business into gnucash.
> > > >
> > > > Have a closing trial balance @  year end 2019
> > > >
> > > > In the setup screen I don't necessarily have all the accounts, so I
> > > imagine
> > > > I can set them up later, but some accounts that area available do
> not let
> > > > me put in an opening balance.
> > > >
> > > > E.g. "retained earnings" has a balance, but in the set up screen
> there
> > > is a
> > > > greyed out "zero" and I cannot set up the opening balance. Can I edit
> > > that
> > > > later?
> > > >
> > > > I tried this before, but was never able to figure it out.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Stephen M Butler, PMP, PSM
> > > Stephen.M.Butler51 at gmail.com
> > > kg7je at arrl.net
> > > 253-350-0166
> > > -------------------------------------------
> > > GnuPG Fingerprint:  8A25 9726 D439 758D D846 E5D4 282A 5477 0385 81D8
> > >
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