On Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 12:27:22PM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote: > HI, > > On Tue, February 2, 2021 12:07 pm, Chris Green wrote: > > On Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 10:12:09AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> On Tue, February 2, 2021 10:03 am, Chris Green wrote: > >> [snip] > >> > Yes, that works, thanks Derek. I suppose it's not too onerous as I > >> > only do it once a year! :-) > >> > >> This begs the question: Why are you doing this? Why not just backup > >> the > >> data file, then run tools -> Close Books to zero out your income/expense > >> accounts, and then continue on with the same data file? Why start over > >> from scratch? > >> > > Because having a separate xxx.gnucash file for each year fits much > > better with my way of working where I have a directory for each year > > and keep all the documents for one year in the same place. Thus I > > have the general accounts, the building fund accounts, copies of > > GiftAid forms, invoices etc. all in one directory which is easily > > saved and transportable. > > That kind of archiving makes sense, but I don't see why you need to > actually start over. You could keep the existing data as you start the > new year. I.e., you could do the equivalent of: > > copy datafile from 2020/foo.gnucash to 2021/foo.gnucash > Yes, but the last year's data simply confuses things in this year and doesn't add anything useful IMHO.
> Also keep in mind, GnuCash can also get confused if you have multiple > files of the same name in different directories. So the above might cause > issues with metadata, because both would want to open "foo.gnucash.gcm". > Yes, I know, gnucash is a very odd program in many ways and this is one of its oddities. It does really feel sometime as if gnucash *tries* to be non-standard and not work like most other programs. :-) Since I'm starting gnucash explicitly with the file name on the command line it seems to behave OK though. However I'm quite prepared to have g2020.gnucash and g2021.gnucash if necessary. > > It also means I can use the same report format as I don't have to > > generate a report for each year, the report is always for 'everything > > in the accounts'. > > I'm not sure what "same report format" means here. > I have, for example, an income report for 2020. If I want to see the same report for another year I have to go and explicitly change the start and end dates, then to get back to the 2020 one I have to put the 2020 dates back. > >> GnuCash happily deals with multiple years of data; the reports happily > >> report for you. > > > > Only if you specify the date *every time* you generate the report, > > unless you copy them when you generate them. > > The default settings work pretty well. So really, you should rarely have > to change dates, except when there is something specific you want. Those > reports currently default to the current accounting period, which can be > arbitrary or fixed. > For me that is exceedingly irritating! The current accounting period seems to be 'this year' which isn't particularly handy if I want to see some details from last year. > For me, I have "Previous Year" Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports > that I leave open. > You must have a *lot* of 'open' reports then if you ever look at things for two or three year back. I find having so many things open just clutters the interface. With just one year per instance there aren't nearly so many tabs to search through when looking for things. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] 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.
