In France, even for small clubs like ours, we face a regulatory requirement that the books be immutable after end of year. This makes sense in that if the tax authorities (even though we don't have to file taxes) ask us a question and then find out that our books for some past year have changed, they might reasonably be suspicious of our rigor and tax-exempt-worthiness.
Is there a way in gnucash to make a set of transactions or a period of time immutable? For us, that's really the only reason we still have for "closing books" -- avoiding this sort of mistake where something gets accidentally entered or changed from a past year. Jeff Abrahamson +33 6 24 40 01 57 +44 7920 594 255 http://p27.eu/jeff/ On 15/01/18 22:23, Ronal B Morse wrote: > This is what I do, but I'm only dealing with household and personal > accounts and smallish investment portfolios. Because the statement > closing dates for the investment and personal bank and credit accounts > don't correspond exactly with the beginning date of the new book, > there's always some monkey motion at the first of the year to "fix" > opening balances or manually add transactions that were in float. > > Not much work, actually, and this keeps the year's data file (and > backups) down to a reasonable size. Access to past data is as easy as > opening the appropriate file (one must remember to ensure you're > working on the correct data at the start of the next session as the > autobot opens the last data file you uses, not the newest by date). > > I understand that people using GnuCash for business purposes may be > facing different issues and restrictions. > > RBM. > > > On 01/15/2018 01:54 PM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote: >> Let's discuss this (and possible options) >> >> First, you need to understand what "close the books" does do and what >> is does not do. It creates a transaction (or transactions) to zero >> out income and expense accounts to equity. It does NOT remove >> transactions and so will not make your file smaller. >> >> It sounds like what you want is something more like to was in the old >> days of books kept in BOOKS, pen and ink on paper. What was common >> at the end of each accounting period was to close the old books and >> open new ones. The old volumes were put safely by in case they needed >> to be referenced later. >> >> One of the advantages of software like gnucash is that it can create >> the usual reports without actually closing the books. Easy to >> reference old transactions (previous accounting periods) without >> having to "bring them back" as they would have done in the old days >> when physical books. But suppose you don't want this, you don't want >> to be seeing all those accounts that have become obsolete cluttering >> up your view, etc. Or are worried about the sheer size of the file, etc. >> >> You CAN simulate what was done in the old days when they opened new >> books each period. This is just like when you created your gnucash >> books in the first place. You run a final Balance Sheet report which >> gives you the balances of all of the standing accounts (asset, >> liability, and equity). You create a new set of books, say by >> exporting the CoA and importing that to a new set of books (all >> accounts zero) and can delete any accounts that are obsolete. You >> then enter the initial values from the Balance Sheet << note: I never >> use the facility to create accounts with an initial value but instead >> with an opening transaction, or rather two so each is split on only >> one side >> >> >> You of course SAVE the old file. If you at some future time want to >> look at old (prior period) transactions you simply ask gnucash to >> open THAT (saved) file instead of the one you are currently using. >> >> Michael D Novack >> >> PS: All of my books are small enough that I have never been tempted >> to do this. The obsolete accounts do not appear in the reports as >> furnished to the boards of the organizations because EDITED first << >> in other words, I do not expect gnucash to produce the final pretty >> version of reports. I have to edit them anyway to add annotations >> explaining and unusual entries so all the editing for "pretty print" >> etc. can be done at that time >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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. -- Jeff Abrahamson +33 6 24 40 01 57 +44 7920 594 255 http://p27.eu/jeff/ _______________________________________________ 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.
