Re: [GNC] (GNU) How to Transition to a New Year
Thank you, Adrien, for the prompt and reassuring reply. Based on your guidance, we'll just stay the course and keep adding to the current file. We're retired and use GnuCash in place of Quicken to track household spending and organize our taxes. Now retired, we have simplified our investment portfolio and don't need all the various accounts we managed in the past. Glad to learn we can keep going with the same file and format. GnuCash is working well for us and will continue as our money management application. More thanks and Happy New Year, Richard Claeys -Original Message- From: gnucash-user On Behalf Of Adrien Monteleone Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2020 5:09 PM To: Gnucash Users Subject: Re: [GNC] (GNU) How to Transition to a New Year Do you *need* to start a new file each year? While GnuCash has a close the books procedure, it is not necessary to use it as that is a holdover from the days of pen and paper where physical limitations of bound volumes required doing so for organization purposes. (maybe some minor security purposes as well) Computers can keep everything in one file and you simply run reports for the time periods you need. If you want to proceed anyway, there are various methods and workflows, but that really depends on your reason for doing so in order to determine which will be most useful to you. Yes, you can simply save as a new file and the old one will not contain newer entries. This is the easiest and simplest way to retain your account tree and current balance info across all of your accounts and any book-specific preferences. Some people burn the old file onto a read-only disc for archival purposes along with PDF copies of year-end reports, though they can be regenerated by opening the file. You can also just keep the file going and run the close books procedure. This will close out your income and expense categories to Equity:Retained Earnings. Again, this is not necessary, but some people who ve been doing accounting for decades are more comfortable maintaining the habit. There is no real benefit, and you will lose the ability to run reports across period boundaries or even for prior periods depending on the date of your closing entries. (yearly for most people) You can do either of the above, and start with a fresh file every year, recreating your chart of accounts, adding in opening balances from last period s ending balances, etc. Note, if you use the Business Features, you ll need to export-import all of your customers, vendors and employees, and you ll have to figure out a way to handle carryover AP/AR as there is no built-in mechanism for doing so. You d lose all invoice/bill aging data. If you are tracking investments, especially if you have many of them, I d highly recommend to just stick with the current file. Other s may report decent mileage, but I d think trying to move ending balances over to a new file and then losing historical price information for still-held securities would be a nightmare. Regards, Adrien > On Jan 9, 2020 w2d9, at 6:47 PM, Richard Claeys wrote: > > I'm trying to start a new file for the new year and don't see a simple > way to make the change either in the user's manual or the FAQs. Do I > have to create a new file or can I simply save entries after 1/1/2020 > to a new destination and rename it? If the answer is in the manual, > just point me to the correct chapter; if not, let me know the simplest > way to carry over my current list of accounts and start a new and > separate file or folder. I'm sure I'm missing something and could sure use > your help. > > > > Thank you in advance, > > > > Richard Claeys ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - 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 If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
[GNC] (GNU) How to Transition to a New Year
I'm trying to start a new file for the new year and don't see a simple way to make the change either in the user's manual or the FAQs. Do I have to create a new file or can I simply save entries after 1/1/2020 to a new destination and rename it? If the answer is in the manual, just point me to the correct chapter; if not, let me know the simplest way to carry over my current list of accounts and start a new and separate file or folder. I'm sure I'm missing something and could sure use your help. Thank you in advance, Richard Claeys ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
RE: Correcting Opening Balances
Tommy, this is very helpful and confirms some of my hunches going into tax time. So far I have only moved six or so years of Quicken to my GnuCash archives. I want to go through tax season before adding anything else. Renaming and moving the older files should work best for me, although I am tempted to hide some of the inactive accounts, such as closed credit cards and sold securities. I understand better now the relationship between the cards and the bank accounts used to pay off balances. This is a big help and I agree with you that I’ll need more time and practice—plus some time with our tech consultant—before deleting anything of substance. Overall, I see the value of GnuCash and just have to get used to its different features and requirements after more than two decades with Quicken. Thank you again, Richard Claeys From: Tommy Trussell [mailto:tommy.truss...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2018 9:07 AM To: Richard Claeys <rcla...@accesscom.com> Cc: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>; Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com> Subject: Re: Correcting Opening Balances On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 11:32 AM, Richard Claeys <rcla...@accesscom.com <mailto:rcla...@accesscom.com> > wrote: Here is an example of what I am encountering: One of the accounts that popped up after the conversion from Quicken is a credit card that I dropped in 1998; when I click on "Delete Account" I receive a response along the lines of "Do you want to combine this with credit card ?" Apparently the double-entry accounting doesn't allow me to simply dispose of accounts that no longer exist. I'm not sure what the limitations on deleting accounts might be, but remember when you delete an entire credit card account you are not proposing to delete transactions from just one account -- EACH transaction will affect AT LEAST one other account, and if you deleted all of the transactions it would throw off the balance of every checking account you used to pay the credit card bill, and every expense account affiliated with those transactions. Over the many years I have used GnuCash I have used two basic methods of handling accounts I don't use anymore. I either rename accounts or I make them "hidden" accounts. For example, if I get frustrated with Bank of Somewhere card and decide to close my credit account, I close the account, and I can immediately change the credit account's name from "Somewhere" to "CLOSED Somewhere" so I don't accidentally enter new transactions. But the transactions are still readily visible and adjustable. That situation might stand until the closing statement arrives. If the account tree seems to be getting too cluttered with accounts, another option is to a higher-level account heading so I don't have to look through them. For example: Liabilities Credit Cards Bank of Elsewhere Bank of Nowhere Inactive Cards Bank of Somewhere The other option I mentioned is just to set the account type to "hidden" and you won't see it in the account list anymore, and you won't be able to select it when you're entering new transactions. But the transactions will still appear in reports, just as you would hope. At any time you can choose to show hidden accounts in the account listing. And as mentioned before, both our bank accounts are inflated by a factor of 10. Can I just go back to January 1, 2018 and enter a fresh Opening Balance that matches our printed statements? Or is there another way to reset balances without reinstalling and starting from scratch? I would suggest that maybe you might consider EITHER 1) Create two sets of books, one with your "archived" data (that you never again update) and one with your "current" data, OR 2) Create fresh accounts in your existing books, using "current" and "archived" names or account headings, similar to the method shown in the example above. I presume after you become more experienced with GnuCash you might either start over yet again OR merge the current and archived data as you desire. NOTE that at this time I believe there's no built-in method to merge data between separate books. So consider carefully how you might want to search for old transactions. You gain some flexibility having them all in one file, at the possible cost of having more "junk" you don't want to see while you're learning. I also suggest that if you haven't yet filed your taxes for the past tax year you probably want your current book to include transactions back to the end of the PREVIOUS tax year, at least until after you file your taxes. So for example you might pull all your statements and get your books reconciled back to January 1, 2017. That way you can create similar reports in GnuC
RE: Correcting Opening Balances
Thank you for the responses to date. I will work on the bank accounts first, then go back to the manual for direction before turning to investment accounts. Here is an example of what I am encountering: One of the accounts that popped up after the conversion from Quicken is a credit card that I dropped in 1998; when I click on "Delete Account" I receive a response along the lines of "Do you want to combine this with credit card ?" Apparently the double-entry accounting doesn't allow me to simply dispose of accounts that no longer exist. And as mentioned before, both our bank accounts are inflated by a factor of 10. Can I just go back to January 1, 2018 and enter a fresh Opening Balance that matches our printed statements? Or is there another way to reset balances without reinstalling and starting from scratch? I will be out of town a few days and will not be working on cleaning up GnuCash until next week, so no rushbut I could sure use some help in getting the program in sync with our actual financial statements. Thanks again, Richard Claeys -Original Message- From: gnucash-user [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+rclaeys=accesscom@gnucash.org] On Behalf Of Mike or Penny Novack Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2018 5:33 AM To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org Subject: Re: Correcting Opening Balances On 1/13/2018 5:17 PM, David Carlson wrote: > Did you check the transactions as you imported them to weed out > duplicates and correct errors? > > If not, I would suggest starting over to get at least reasonably close > to a good starting point. Also, this is a case where the solution to the problem more obvious if you understand what "opening balance" is doing, how you would be doing that if setting up your books manually (hand creating the opening TRANSACTIONs), and the proper/formal method of correcting "errors" and omissions << entering a correcting transaction instead of editing an existing one>> If you are going to import from another system, run a Balance Sheet (of that other system) as of the date you will be using for the import. That will show you what the opening values SHOULD be. Michael D Novack ___ 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.
Correcting Opening Balances
I migrated my many years of Quicken files from our Mac to our PC, then downloaded and installed GnuCash to handle household spending and investment transactions going forward. While the initial results have been encouraging, my major problem is the balances shown for each account. For instance our primary bank account is inflated by a factor of 10, while our investment accounts are totally inaccurate with closed or hidden accounts back, various securities in the wrong account, and all totals out of alignment. I was hoping that our January banking and brokerage statements would serve as the basis for cleaning up and resetting our accounts, but I have been unable to change any of the opening balances or rearrange current portfolios. Is there a method to make these changes at the outset, or do I have to live with GnuCash only as a program for simple household transactions? Please let me know what I am missing or what can be done to make our current account information accurate in the GnuCash format. Thank you in advance, Richard Claeys Saratoga, CA ___ 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.
