On 5/24/2017 10:46 AM, doncram wrote:
....... What is meant by "closing" in GnuCash-jargon seems different
than what is meant more usually in accounting.
I............
4. Freezing forever the accounts for the period (in software, this would be
done by putting a lock on any transactions before the new period)
I am guessing that GnuCash does not support #4.
I gather that in GnuCash, #2 and #3 don't need to be done, because the
income statement report already exists.
a) The intermediate steps once used in pen and ink on paper accounting
are indeed redundant and can be skipped
b) No, #4 is EASY. Your confusion is in forgetting that in old fashioned
pen and ink on paper accounting this was done by putting the old journal
and ledger volumes away when the volumes for the new period began. You
do the SAME THING with gnucash if you wish. I suspect that the reason
you didn't "see it" is you were expecting a "button to push"? (within
gnucash)
1) To make a file unalterable, you make a copy of that file onto
read only medium.
2) Making copies of files is something you ordinarily do outside of
applications. How are you now making backups? This is just a special
sort of backup (one on medium that makes it read only).
When I am doing this for one of the organizations for which I keep
books, I do a pre-close backup (after adjusting entries like
depreciation but before closing income and expense accounts to equity)
and a post close backup, burn copies to CDROM (or DVDROM) and among
other things, make sure some other officer of the organization gets
copies. You do the "Income Statement" (well "Statement of Revenues and
Expenses" as my organizations are non-profits) in the pre-close and the
"Balance Sheet" either.
Michael D Novack
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