[GNC] Changing from one year to the next

[Adrien Monteleone]

Indeed, I forgot about that two-step process.

Of course, it also facilitated a nice breakpoint to move to a new 
physical volume as unlike computers, bound paper tomes are not 
practically infinite in their storage capacity.

Regards,
Adrien

On 1/21/26 9:55 AM, Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user wrote:
> Not EXACTLY "merely"
> 
> Back in the old days of pen and ink on paper, not only did "closing" the 
> temporary income and expense accounts into equity zero out these 
> accounts ahead of the next period but the process created the "Income 
> Statement" (aka Profit and Loss). That's because it was a two step 
> process. The income and expense accounts were not directly closed to 
> equity. They were first closed to another temporary account (of 
> fundamental type Equity) that had a name like "Profit and Loss", Then 
> THIS account was closed to equity using whatever amount, a net gain or 
> loss, that was required to bring that special "profit and Loss"  account 
> to zero (thus closing IT).
> 
> That account was then the "Profit and Loss" report for the period.
> 
> Isn't it nice having a computer just fake that. When we run the "Income 
> Statement" report it is showing us what we would see IF we had done this 
> two step process.