[GNC] How to run Year End Procedures for the Tax Year (UK end 5 April 2023), and start new Data set for the New Tax Year starting 6 April 2023

[CJN.... ...]

8 April 2023

WOW - Thanks to all of you who have sent me advice of setting up GNU-Cash for a new Financial Year.

Read all your messages - all very helpful.
Looked at the Help-Contents on Closing (after Year End 5 April)
Closed Accounts. And started new set of data.
And entered data for the Transactions of the last few days from New Year Start 6 April.

And as far as I can see from Trial Balance, and Income/Expenses Reports, all data is as it should be!

It's been a long Good Friday for this accounting novice. But I think I got there.
Just hope I remember it all for the next Year End :) - Or I might be back for more Help!

Chris
London
cjn-international at hotmail.com


-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+cjn_international=hotmail.com at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of Stan Brown
Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2023 12:09 AM
To: GnuCash User List <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] How to run Year End Procedures for the Tax Year (UK end 5 April 2023), and start new Data set for the New Tax Year starting 6 April 2023


On 2023-04-07 14:09, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
> 
> The point is, if you ever want to look at the books in their state 
> prior to the 2023 close you don't undo anything. Instead you retrieve 
> the back-up and open a copy of that.

That's certainly possible, and I agree it's much better than undoing things. But there's a very large caveat:

When you open GnuCash, it opens the file you were working on most recently. So you need to be very sure that you have opened the file you intended to, after you have finished whatever you wanted to do with the pre-closing file.

My advice: when you're working on the pre-closing file, don't close GnuCash. Instead, close that file, open your current file, and _then_ close GnuCash.

If you're like me (and like several people every month who run into this and ask about it on the mailing list) you're used to having your current file open when you open GnuCash, and you may not notice if some other file opens.

That's why I recommend closing the pre-closing file and opening your current file before you close GC. Sure, if you have to work on your pre-closing file again, you'll have to open it again, which is an extra step. But at least you're never in the position of entering a bunch of transactions and _then_ discovering that you weren't in the file you meant to be in.

P.S. There's a workaround for this in Windows, and I believe in Linux as well. Put the name of your current file on the GnuCash command line (which is probably inside a shortcut if you're running Windows), and when GC starts it will open that file regardless of which file you were working on last. (In MacOS, the file on the command line is ignored.)

--
Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com
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