Thanks Ken I wrote a reply before reading yours!
The file is very large and unwieldy already - are there any limits on the file size? One of the impacts is also that each time I update the file at least one copy is made - the folder on my MAC for December grew to >130MB. JACK On 15 January 2018 at 16:11, Ken Pyzik <py...@cox.net> wrote: > David -- Excellent point. To expand upon it let's demonstrate this: > > At 12/31/2017 -- you have balances in all your accounts -- for brevity, > will just use one real simple example: > > At 12/31/2017 - let's assume the checking account has a balance of $500. > If you eliminate all 2017 transactions, the balance would be different -- > as it would be the balance as of the end of 2016 (since the net effect of > all of the 2017 transactions would have been eliminated). Now let's say > at the end of 2016, the balance of the checking account was $1200 (i.e., as > a result of all the transactions for 2017, the net effect was a -$700). > But you eliminated the transactions so the starting balance is now $1200 -- > but that is not what your starting balance was on 1/1/2018. > > So, one could isolate all the 2017 transactions -- place them in 2017 > accounts -- calculate the net effect of all of those transactions on each > account -- plug "net-effect-transactions" to the existing accounts with > contra (balancing transactions) to "other balancing / opening balances > adjustments account" and in effect do what you want. But the labor to do > this would probably be more than just doing as David has said -- start a > new file for 2018. > > Finally, if you really want to isolate 2017 - you could set up "checking > account-2017 " and then another "checking account -2018' as 2 separate > accounts and start charging the new expenses, etc. to the new 2018 > account. But again - this has a tendency to double all your accounts. > That is why the reporting mechanism in there. You can have continuous > accounts, and isolate, for reporting, a number of transactions for any > given period (a month, a year, a calendar year, a fiscal year, a 6-30 to > 6-30 time period, etc.) > > Hope that helps and did not confuse the subject. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: gnucash-user [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+pyz01=cox....@gnucash.org] > On Behalf Of David T. via gnucash-user > Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 7:39 AM > To: Jack Whyte <jvwh...@gmail.com> > Cc: gnucash-user@gnucash.org > Subject: Re: Year end issues > > No, there isn’t. The Close book feature simply creates a transaction that > zeroes out your income and expense accounts as of a given date. > > In a double entry accounting system, if you delete the expense side of the > transaction, what do you suggest doing for the Checking account side? If > you are desperate to clear out older transactions, you will most likely > have to create a new file with a new set of opening balances. See > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Closing_Books <https://wiki.gnucash.org/ > wiki/Closing_Books> > > Of course, many people prefer to keep historical transactions, and use > reports to extract subsets of their file as needed. > > David > > > On Jan 15, 2018, at 8:03 PM, Jack Whyte <jvwh...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hi there > > > > I have used GNU Cash for a number of years to monitor my personal > finances. I have just run the Tools > Close book function to clear down > all my expense & income account balances as at 31/12/17 however I seem to > have transactions in all of these accounts going back, in some cases, to > 2009/2010. > > > > Can someone please advise me if there is a straightforward mechanism to > delete all transactions in these accounts - say, up to and including > 31/12/2016 as I am concerned the file, currently at around 1.3MB, will > become unwieldy and unmanageable. > > > > Thanks & regards > > Jack > > _______________________________________________ > > gnucash-user mailing list > > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > > ----- > > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.