[GNC] Account setup

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 9/28/2021 1:16 PM, Rogier F. van Vlissingen wrote:
> 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.

a) Correcting the books --- this depends on how formal you are. Gnucash 
will allow you to edit exiting transactions. That is the informal way, 
maybe OK for personal books unlikely to be audited. The technically 
correct way in formal bookkeeping is to enter a correction transaction 
offsetting the error, with description referring to the original being 
corrected. That's what I do, but then most of my books are 
organizational, not my personal books. A treasurer of an organization 
should do it the right way.

b) Deleting  books --- yes, simply delete the file. Just like to make a 
backup you make a copy of the file.

Michael D Novack