Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[flywire]

As I wrote, the hack won't mean much to people using calendar year tax
reports. The accounting year absolutely allows reports to be run for a
fiscal year, but it's like driving down the road without being able to look
at the traffic around you so little chance to correct errors.

Comparative reporting needs access to *two* fiscal year periods
but the accounting period can only set *one* period. The hack provides the
previous fiscal year for tax reporting, and importantly the accounting
period can be set to two fiscal years previous, to allow comparative
reporting between the most recently completed tax reports and the ones
being prepared.


https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2024-March/111000.html
John wrote:

> If you follow the mailing list link in Flywire's original
> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2021-October/097880.html
> 
> you'll see that it shares a hack of the Scheme relative-date code to shift
> the calendar year by a hard-coded 6 months [Note the most important hack is
> the previous year]. GnuCash 5 includes a rewrite of the option system in
> C++ so the hack can't be applied any more.



But I think it's unnecessary since changing the accounting period in
> preferences to e.g. 1 July 2023 - 30 June 2024 accompanies [sic] the same
> thing...



https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2024-March/110996.html
flywire wrote:

> Let's do profit and loss, and balance sheet reports for tax reporting
> in GnuCash. You'll want to run the reports the previous year, and you
> can compare them to two years previous to assess the credibility of the
> values. (If your tax reports are for calendar year then congratulations,
> and the next paragraph won't mean much to you.)


> GnuCash allows you to define Accounting Period but that doesn't allow
> a simple comparison between the previous fiscal year and two fiscal
> years previous. The hack for GnuCash V4 does allow that by defining the
> current year other than the calendar year (example is 1 Jul to 30 Jun) so
> the reports are similar to most financial software.



Regards

>
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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[john]

Adrien,

If you follow the mailing list link in Flywire's original, 
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2021-October/097880.html, 
you'll see that it shares a hack of the Scheme relative-date code to shift the 
calendar year by a hard-coded 6 months. GnuCash 5 includes a rewrite of the 
option system in C++ so the hack can't be applied any more.

But I think it's unnecessary since changing the accounting period in 
preferences to e.g. 1 July 2023 - 30 June 2024 accompanies the same thing, the 
only problem being that you annually have to update the years. Note, though, 
that the accounting period preference is a bit too flexible: The relative dates 
are hard-coded to the first or last day of the calendar month, so they won't 
work if the period starts and ends in the middle of a month, and they assume a 
12-month period so using some of the relative dates with an accounting period 
of more or less than 12 months will create reports that don't align with the 
period.

Regards,
John Ralls

> On Mar 2, 2024, at 06:21, Adrien Monteleone  
> wrote:
> 
> I'm still not understanding what change you are referring to.
> 
> In both 4.x and 5.x you can set your Accounting Period to a relative date or 
> an absolute date such as Jul 1 2024 to Jun 30 2024 and when you run reports, 
> choose relative dates such as 'Start/End of Accounting Period' or 'start/end 
> of previous year' which would line up with Jul 1 2023 to Jun 30 2023.
> 
> I've never seen a relative option for 2 years prior. You can always run a 
> separate report with those absolute dates however.
> 
> But it sounds like you made your own code modifications to do something 
> GnuCash didn't support, and now they don't work. That's not a fault of 
> GnuCash. That's a fault of your assumption that whatever code you relied on 
> to do it wouldn't change. Your solution isn't to insist the devs revert their 
> changes, but to fix your own code.
> 
> Now, if any change in GnuCash *does* affect the intended and supported 
> behavior/functions, that would be a bug.
> 
> Otherwise, reverting the change would need to have a very good case (beyond 
> helping you avoid changing your own hack) made in an RFE.
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 
> On 3/1/24 8:28 PM, flywire wrote:
>> Follow the links through to the code - cur-year and cal-year. The hack
>> supports: this, last and 2 years prior fiscal years which is about
>> what you want preparing tax reports.
> 
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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Adrien Monteleone]

I'm still not understanding what change you are referring to.

In both 4.x and 5.x you can set your Accounting Period to a relative 
date or an absolute date such as Jul 1 2024 to Jun 30 2024 and when you 
run reports, choose relative dates such as 'Start/End of Accounting 
Period' or 'start/end of previous year' which would line up with Jul 1 
2023 to Jun 30 2023.


I've never seen a relative option for 2 years prior. You can always run 
a separate report with those absolute dates however.


But it sounds like you made your own code modifications to do something 
GnuCash didn't support, and now they don't work. That's not a fault of 
GnuCash. That's a fault of your assumption that whatever code you relied 
on to do it wouldn't change. Your solution isn't to insist the devs 
revert their changes, but to fix your own code.


Now, if any change in GnuCash *does* affect the intended and supported 
behavior/functions, that would be a bug.


Otherwise, reverting the change would need to have a very good case 
(beyond helping you avoid changing your own hack) made in an RFE.


Regards,
Adrien

On 3/1/24 8:28 PM, flywire wrote:

Follow the links through to the code - cur-year and cal-year. The hack
supports: this, last and 2 years prior fiscal years which is about
what you want preparing tax reports.


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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Adrien Monteleone]

Wow, an accounting period of 54 years? I'm not sure I'd ever need to do 
so, but glad to know it works!


Regards,
Adrien

On 3/2/24 12:26 AM, Geoff wrote:
Maybe I am missing something here, but I created a book with a start 
date of 1-Jan-1970 and an end date of 31-Dec-2024, keyed transactions 
dated 2-Feb-1970 and 3-Mar-2024, and the Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss 
reports are behaving as expected.


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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[flywire]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2024 at 17:26, Geoff  wrote:

> Maybe I am missing something here


Absolutely.

Say the height of a sporting team member was given as 2.2m high. Was the
measurement correct? Who knows! You can use relative values to assess the
credibility of a number. Given two other members measured 2.1m and 2.3m the
measurement looks credible.

Let's do profit and loss, and balance sheet reports for tax reporting in
GnuCash. You'll want to run the reports the previous year, and you can
compare them to two years previous to assess the credibility of the values.
(If your tax reports are for calendar year then congratulations, and the
next paragraph won't mean much to you.)

GnuCash allows you to define Accounting Period but that doesn't allow a
simple comparison between the previous fiscal year and two fiscal years
previous. The hack for GnuCash V4 does allow that by defining the current
year other than the calendar year (example is 1 Jul to 30 Jun) so the
reports are similar to most financial software.
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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[flywire]

Follow the links through to the code - cur-year and cal-year. The hack
supports: this, last and 2 years prior fiscal years which is about
what you want preparing tax reports.
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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Adrien Monteleone]

What do you mean this was removed? I'm on 5.5 and I still see Relative & 
Absolute Accounting Period settings.


Regards,
Adrien

On 3/1/24 4:45 PM, flywire wrote:

With Gnucash V5 current year with a configurable day/month/year was removed
and hard-coded as calendar year.

Alternatives:

1. Run a GnuCash portable app version since settings are held in the app
folder -
https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/GnuCash%20Portable/
2. The easiest and most natural way is to run GnuCash V4  (probably
from GnuCashPortable_4.13.paf.exe ) and Hack Financial / Fiscal Year in all
Reports -
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2021-October/097880.html
(message me if it fails when running between Jan and Jun)


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[GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[flywire]

With Gnucash V5 current year with a configurable day/month/year was removed
and hard-coded as calendar year.

Alternatives:

   1. Run a GnuCash portable app version since settings are held in the app
   folder -
   https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/GnuCash%20Portable/
   2. The easiest and most natural way is to run GnuCash V4  (probably
   from GnuCashPortable_4.13.paf.exe ) and Hack Financial / Fiscal Year in all
   Reports -
   https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2021-October/097880.html
   (message me if it fails when running between Jan and Jun)
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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 2/3/2024 7:13 PM, Jay McSkimming wrote:

Hi

Is there any solution (other than repeated manual system-wide changes) to allow 
for multiple fiscal years for different sets of accounts arising from different 
country tax years?

Are there any add-ons or means to allow this?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks in advance


Means to allow this"

1)  Use explicit dates for all reports rather than relative to "current 
fiscal year".  You don't NEED to utilize "fiscal year" in the program 
sense as opposed to the ;logical sense.


Note that you are not being clear when you say "different sets of 
accounts" whether you mean in separate books or in the same books.


2) If in separate sets of books, you can use "current fiscal year", etc. 
by creating multiple users on your computer (multiple logins). For 
example, you probably have (should have) at least two, you yourself as 
an ordinary user, and as a user with supervisor rights). Well you can 
create additional ordinary users, just as if multiple people were using 
your computer. The computer isn't going to know or care all the same human.


    I don't think Stan's objection is very strong. IF the reason this 
is being done because reporting for different countries then having 
shared preferences,  report formats, etc. is probably not what you want 
as the requirements of each country might be different. Even if 
currently the same, might become different at any time. Yes, a bit more 
work for the ones where at the current time the requirements the same, 
but allows for change to any if/when that happens. In other words, look 
at this in reverse and look at the question "I report to a number of 
entities and because they were all requiring the same report format, I 
was sharing this. But now one of there entities requires a different 
format for some of the reports. Not a BIG change. So how do I unsplit 
the shared saved format so I can alter one of them?"


Michael D Novack


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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Liz]

On Sun, 4 Feb 2024 11:13:49 +1100
Jay McSkimming  wrote:

> Hi
> 
> Is there any solution (other than repeated manual system-wide
> changes) to allow for multiple fiscal years for different sets of
> accounts arising from different country tax years?
> 
> Are there any add-ons or means to allow this?
> 
> Any help appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Jay

If you are on a multi-user OS, then you can have different book
preferences for each user.
If this is an ongoing need, consider making some more logins, one for
each country involved, and split those accounts into the appropriate
"users".

Liz
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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Jay McSkimming]

Thanks Stan, that was pretty much my conclusion (and diagnosis).

Perhaps would be a useful enhancement to move accounting periods to the 
accounts file level rather than within system preferences.  Sadly out of my 
capabilities though.



On 4 Feb 2024, at 11:56 am, Stan Brown (using GC 4.14)  
wrote:

On 2024-02-03 16:13, Jay McSkimming wrote:
> Is there any solution (other than repeated manual system-wide changes) to 
> allow for multiple fiscal years for different sets of accounts arising from 
> different country tax years?
> 
> Are there any add-ons or means to allow this?

I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, because I had a similar need a few
months ago, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" -- you have to change
the accounting period manually when switching between books that have
different accounting periods ("tax years").

The issue is that accounting period is a per-user preference, not a
File » Properties preference. I suppose you _could_ create additional
user accounts, and have a different accounting period ("tax year") in
each, but then there's no automated way to synchronize all the other
preferences, report layouts, and so forth among those separate accounts.

Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com

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Re: [GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Stan Brown (using GC 4.14)]

On 2024-02-03 16:13, Jay McSkimming wrote:
> Is there any solution (other than repeated manual system-wide changes) to 
> allow for multiple fiscal years for different sets of accounts arising from 
> different country tax years?
> 
> Are there any add-ons or means to allow this?

I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, because I had a similar need a few
months ago, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" -- you have to change
the accounting period manually when switching between books that have
different accounting periods ("tax years").

The issue is that accounting period is a per-user preference, not a
File » Properties preference. I suppose you _could_ create additional
user accounts, and have a different accounting period ("tax year") in
each, but then there's no automated way to synchronize all the other
preferences, report layouts, and so forth among those separate accounts.

Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com
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[GNC] Multiple Fiscal Years

[Jay McSkimming]

Hi

Is there any solution (other than repeated manual system-wide changes) to allow 
for multiple fiscal years for different sets of accounts arising from different 
country tax years?

Are there any add-ons or means to allow this?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Jay
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