In my opinion, you are opening a can of worms, but if you are set on
this course...
If you have separate tax returns or other documents that let you know
the income/loss of each entity each year, you may need those to let you
determine correct starting equity by entity. You will need to figure
out what the balances for each account are for each company before you
get too far in so that you have something to check against. Going
forward after this you will need to make any transactions that affect
multiple entities in multiple sets of books.
I will refer to the entities as "Companies" throughout this. I am
probably missing at least one step here, as I can't see your books or
how you've set them up.
*****************************************
SPLIT OUT EXISTING BOOKS WITH HISTORY:
*****************************************
You could (first make a backup, and then):
* start with File 0
* copy to File 1
* copy to File 2
* in File 1, delete checking and other accounts related to Companies 2 & 3
* in File 2, delete checking and other accounts related to Company 1
* copy File 2 to File 3
* in File 2, delete checking and other accounts related to Company 3
* in File 3, delete checking and other accounts related to Company 2
When you delete the accounts, choose to delete the transactions, too.
BUT, if you have ANY transactions between companies, you will need to
first, before anything else, split those transactions into one
transaction for each company.
You may be able to prepare lists to find these transactions by, for
example, running a transaction report for Company 1 checking, savings,
etc. that is filtered by Company 2 checking, savings, etc.
* Create 6 accounts (3 companies x 2 related companies for each)
* COMPANY 1: Due to/from Company 2
* COMPANY 1: Due to/from Company 3
* COMPANY 2: Due to/from Company 1
* COMPANY 2: Due to/from Company 3
* COMPANY 3: Due to/from Company 1
* COMPANY 3: Due to/from Company 2
(or, instead of Due to/from you could use equity accounts, depending on
entity structure, or perhaps new due to/from you personally as the
single account for each company.)
* Split out entries manually as follows:
For sample entry "to move cash from Company 1 to Company 2"
Original:
Dr $100 Company 2 Checking
Cr $100 Company 1 Checking
Becomes two entries:
"Company 1 books: to move cash from Company 1 to Company 2"
Dr $100 COMPANY 1: Due to/from Company 2
Cr $100 Company 1 Checking
"Company 2 books: to move cash from Company 1 to Company 2"
Dr $100 Company 2 Checking
Cr $100 COMPANY 2: Due to/from Company 1
When you are done splitting out these entries, your balances for each
pair of intercompany accounts (or your total of new due to/from you
personally accounts) should net to zero.
Then you can start the process of copying the books.
There may be other manual entries that I've missed. You will want to
allow yourself many hours for this and to work slowly, ready to go back
and fix things in File 0 and restart the rest of the process.
*****************************************
SPLIT OUT BOOKS WITH FRESH START:
*****************************************
Or, start three new books as of the beginning of your year with one
entry each "To split out from combined file" that splits to the opening
balances for that company. Copy the chart of accounts from the original
into each entity file and delete unneeded accounts as you choose. You
will still need to figure out opening balances and intercompany accounts.
On 2023-05-06 07:43 AM, Fred Tydeman wrote:
I have been keeping the books for three separate related entities in the
same file.
I have decided it would be better to have each entity in its own file.
So, one idea is to copy the large file 3 times, to three different names.
Then delete the accounts and transactions of 2 entities, keeping the third.
Do that three times so each file ends up with just the data for one entity.
I have around 1915 accounts, so that might be too much work.
I believe I first tried: Export Transactions to CSV (for a subset of
accounts),
then Import Transactions from CSV
but I got lots of errors about missing items (perhaps securities).
(could be I did that wrong).
I am open to suggestions.
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