On Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 21:04 R Losey <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 12:14 PM Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) < > [email protected]> 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? >> 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. >> > > When I first saw your question, I was wondering why you wanted a > particular order. I started closing out the books a couple of years ago, > and it has been helpful, but I've never really given the order any thought. > When I want to see how a particular Income or Expense item did, I go to > that account and look there for the end-of-year closeouts. > > By the way, how do you deal with whole year reports? If you close the > books on 31 Dec of a year, and do a 01 Jan - 31 Dec year, the Income and > Expenses will be zero. I do my reports from 01 Jan - 30 Dec, which means > that any transactions that occur on 31 Dec I change the date to 30 Dec. I > got that idea from this group, but perhaps you have a better > -- >
The reports (at least the ones I use including P&L) ignore the closing transactions. Many have an option to include them. So not a problem to include the last day of the year. > _______________________________________________ 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.
