Hi, I'm using Gnucash 4.3 on MacOS. This version has a "Close Books" option.
I do understand that using this option, Income and Expenses can be made to transfer to an equity subaccount (like Equity:Starting balance). I also understand that there are alternatives to using this option, but in this query I am just trying to find out in more detail what Close Books does. What I don't understand (based on this writeup <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Closing_Books>) is exactly how it works. - Following closing the books on year X, will the Dec 31, year X balances still reflect the year-X income and expenses, or will they have been zeroed at that point? - If so, it would be difficult to go back and correct something that was done mistakenly during year X, would it not? - Does the new Equity result appear on Jan 1, year X+1? - If the two results appear on different days, it would appear that Gnucash can't do this by means of a transaction, because a transaction (as I understand it) takes place at a single moment in time. - I have heard that to get around this, some accounting software creates a fictional date (like Dec 32 or Jan 0) on which it performs the transferring transactions, so that Dec 31, year X reflects the closing balances for the year and Jan 1 is initialized with the new balances. But I think there would have been mention of this if that is the way Gnucash does it. Thank you, -P. _______________________________________________ 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.
