If your company was operating for a while before 01/03/22, you'll want your balance sheet (aka "Statement of Financial Position") to reflect accurately the value of your assets on 28/02/22. You could input your depreciated asset values on that date.
However I also like to record the original purchase date of fixed assets, which helps me tremendously plan ahead wrt warranty determination, remembering how much and when I paid for something. So, I'd record the original purchase price on the original purchase date too. My starting book could look like: * 01/03/2014 Initial purchase machinery, effective life of 10 years, EOL on 01/03/2024 Equity:Opening Balance -$10,000 Asset:Fixed +$10,000 * 28/02/2022 Accumulated Depreciation (2014 to 2021) Asset:Fixed -$7,000 Equity:Depreciation +$7,000 * 01/03/2022 Annual Depreciation Asset:Fixed -$1,000 Expense:Depreciation +$1,000 * 01/03/2023 Annual Depreciation Asset:Fixed -$1,000 Expense:Depreciation +$1,000 * 01/03/2024 Annual Depreciation Asset:Fixed -$1,000 Expense:Depreciation +$1,000 Thus, on 01/03/2024 the balance in Asset:Fixed is now $0. On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 20:30, Dr. David Kirkby < drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote: > Apologies if this is too much an accounting question, but I'm stuck, and am > trying to work out how GnuCash will handle this. > > I'm trying to enter into GnuCash my company accounts for this financial > year only - I'm not going to bother trying to enter every transaction since > the company started. So the opening balances should reflect the company's > financial position on 28/2/2022, and transactions from 1/3/22 being > recorded. > > I have the account > > Assets:Fixed Assets > > All that contains is test equipment and computer equipment, all of which > will be depreciated - there's no land, or other things that don't > depreciate. > > I initially set Assets:Fixed Assets to have an opening balance of £x, as > that's what my accountant told me the total of all thef fixed assets was > worth. I see that is reflected in the account > > Equity:Opening Balances > > However, after I asked him, my accountant gave me a breakdown of the net > value of the individual fixed assets, which have obviously depreciated over > time. I thought it would be useful to have their individual net values on > 28/2/2022 recorded in GnuCash, so when I depreciate them next year, I can > keep a track of the depreciation. (I also thought of depreciating them > monthly, which I could probably do with the scheduled transactions, as my > accountant is using linear depreciation). > > That brings me to the problem that my initial entry for the opening > balance of these fixed assets would be wrong, and should possibly set to > zero. > > Can I set that balance to zero, then delete the appropriate Equity:Opening > Balances entry? > Would it be sensible to have a sub-account under Equity:Fixed Assets, or > is that just not sensible? > > Obviously by the very nature of a double-entry system, in order to debit > the Fixed Assets, I need to credit somewhere else. > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > 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 To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: 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.
