On 2025-06-10 09:16, Stephen M. Butler wrote:
> On 6/10/25 08:41, Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user wrote:
>> On 6/10/2025 12:36 AM, Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) wrote:
>>> The Close the Book tool generates two transactions, one for all income
>>> accounts and the other for all expense accounts. The accounts are not in
>>> alphabetical order in either transaction, nor are they in Account Code
>>> order, nor arranged by the values of the splits.
>>>
>>> They _seem_ random, but I can't imagine they really are. Can anyone tell
>>> me (a) how they're actually sorted, and (b) how I can get them in
>>> Account Code order?
>>
>> If you are really doing a "close the books" << close the "temporary*
>> accounts of types income and expense" into equity it could be done
>> three ways:
>>
>> a) In a single transaction.
>>
>> b) In two transactions, one for the income accounts and one for the
>> expense accounts.
>>
>> c) Separate transactions for each income and expense account.
>>
>> These are logical equivalents. So you appear to be asking, "were I
>> using method "c" am I forced to do them in some specified work flow
>> order?" You are of course asking about "b" but what meaning are you
>> attaching to order?
>>
>> Michael D Novack
>
> The GnuCash book closing module uses method b.
>
> One of the things about data storage that I learned early on (retired
> Oracle DBA) is never to assume a particular order within the data
> store. The order could vary depending on the internal representation.
> Does the store use a B-Tree index or a hashing algorithm. Does it use
> the raw value or substitute an internal ID that is then associated with
> the raw value. Or is it stored in the order in which it was
> encountered. This could change from one release of the software to the
> next (Oracle did that a couple of times during my career).
>
> So, if you need to impose some order then the best method is to extract
> the data into an external tool where you can sort it as desired.
Thanks, Stephen. I was afraid that was the answer.
I guess what I'll need to do is set up a scheduled transaction with one
simple transaction per income or expense account. I can make them show
up in the desired order by placing the Account Code in the Num field. Of
course I'll have to remember to change the SX every time I add or move
an income or expense account, and at the end of the year I'll have to
enter the appropriate balances manually. That all seems like a lot of
work, with plenty of room for mistakes.
Although ... When HTML was a lot newer, I hung out in the HTML and CSS
newsgroups. Very often, someone would post a requirement and ask how to
accomplish it, and the answer was "stop wanting that" because the
then-current HTML and CSS specs didn't provide an answer. Maybe the
right answer to my query about getting closing entries in account-code
order is "stop wanting that". Your point about a new release of the
software possibly changing its own strategy is a good one; I too have
seen that happen from time to time.
(Before I go any further, I should say that I use GC for my personal
accounting, not for any business or other organization. So I'm free to
choose the bookkeeping practices that give me the kinds of information I
want to know.)
I need to think about just what I hope to gain by closing the books
every year. And it may be part of a larger context that I need to
resolve also. Here's what I mean by that.
When I learned bookkeeping, we distinguished between ordinary income or
loss) and extraordinary items. Ordinary income was the result of normal
recurring activities, what a business would call day-to-day operations.
Extraordinary items were items that recurred seldom or never and would
distort the computation of net income if they were included, like
getting a significant legacy or having your house flood. Extraordinary
Items was an equity account; it got closed into the top-level equity
account and didn't appear in the income statement except perhaps as a
footnote.
But ultimately, both Ordinary Income and Extraordinary Items affect
total equity, whether they get closed into the top-level Equity account
or not. I need to think carefully about whether keeping Extraordinary
Items in Equities is really the right thing to do in my situation. Then,
I suspect, I'll also know whether to close the books every year, and if
so whether I can use "Tools » Close Books" or need to do the work manually.
--
Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
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.
