Jack - - Not sure on the size constraints – someone else can maybe answer.
With respect to getting it down to a manageable size – I can only speak from my experience. When I transferred over from Quicken, I had transactions dating back to 2003. Bringing them all over was messy. But I did it on a test basis. So, I was able to start over rather easily. When instead, I transferred over only from 2014 and forward, it still was not clean. So, what I finally decided to do was transfer over everything – and then eliminated all transactions I did not want “in mass”. But before I did that – I noted what the beginning balances were for specific accounts BEFORE eliminating the transactions, plugged them in as the opening balances in a separate account and then started eliminating. Interesting, the best part about GNU-CASH is that it has an automatic “imbalance” account that accumulates all the “out-of-balance” situations. When I was finally done, I made sure everything was in balance – altered the opening balances according – and I was where I wanted to be. This may or may not work for you. There is a little bit of trial and error involved. The best thing to do is to make a backup copy – and work on it until you get it the way you like. If you screw up – no biggie – you still have your production version. When the test is finally the way you want it – enter any current transactions – rename the production file something new – and then go and rename the test account to the production name and make it your production going forward. That’s what worked for me – and it worked like a charm in eliminating 9 years of data. Good luck! From: johnv.wh...@gmail.com [mailto:johnv.wh...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Jack Whyte Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 8:27 AM To: Ken Pyzik <py...@cox.net> Cc: David T. <sunfis...@yahoo.com>; Gnucash Users <gnucash-user@gnucash.org> Subject: Re: Year end issues Thanks Ken I wrote a reply before reading yours! The file is very large and unwieldy already - are there any limits on the file size? One of the impacts is also that each time I update the file at least one copy is made - the folder on my MAC for December grew to >130MB. JACK On 15 January 2018 at 16:11, Ken Pyzik <py...@cox.net <mailto:py...@cox.net> > wrote: David -- Excellent point. To expand upon it let's demonstrate this: At 12/31/2017 -- you have balances in all your accounts -- for brevity, will just use one real simple example: At 12/31/2017 - let's assume the checking account has a balance of $500. If you eliminate all 2017 transactions, the balance would be different -- as it would be the balance as of the end of 2016 (since the net effect of all of the 2017 transactions would have been eliminated). Now let's say at the end of 2016, the balance of the checking account was $1200 (i.e., as a result of all the transactions for 2017, the net effect was a -$700). But you eliminated the transactions so the starting balance is now $1200 -- but that is not what your starting balance was on 1/1/2018. So, one could isolate all the 2017 transactions -- place them in 2017 accounts -- calculate the net effect of all of those transactions on each account -- plug "net-effect-transactions" to the existing accounts with contra (balancing transactions) to "other balancing / opening balances adjustments account" and in effect do what you want. But the labor to do this would probably be more than just doing as David has said -- start a new file for 2018. Finally, if you really want to isolate 2017 - you could set up "checking account-2017 " and then another "checking account -2018' as 2 separate accounts and start charging the new expenses, etc. to the new 2018 account. But again - this has a tendency to double all your accounts. That is why the reporting mechanism in there. You can have continuous accounts, and isolate, for reporting, a number of transactions for any given period (a month, a year, a calendar year, a fiscal year, a 6-30 to 6-30 time period, etc.) Hope that helps and did not confuse the subject. -----Original Message----- From: gnucash-user [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+pyz01 <mailto:gnucash-user-bounces%2Bpyz01> =cox....@gnucash.org <mailto:cox....@gnucash.org> ] On Behalf Of David T. via gnucash-user Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 7:39 AM To: Jack Whyte <jvwh...@gmail.com <mailto:jvwh...@gmail.com> > Cc: gnucash-user@gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org> Subject: Re: Year end issues No, there isn’t. The Close book feature simply creates a transaction that zeroes out your income and expense accounts as of a given date. In a double entry accounting system, if you delete the expense side of the transaction, what do you suggest doing for the Checking account side? If you are desperate to clear out older transactions, you will most likely have to create a new file with a new set of opening balances. See https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Closing_Books <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Closing_Books> Of course, many people prefer to keep historical transactions, and use reports to extract subsets of their file as needed. David > On Jan 15, 2018, at 8:03 PM, Jack Whyte <jvwh...@gmail.com > <mailto:jvwh...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Hi there > > I have used GNU Cash for a number of years to monitor my personal finances. > I have just run the Tools > Close book function to clear down all my expense > & income account balances as at 31/12/17 however I seem to have transactions > in all of these accounts going back, in some cases, to 2009/2010. > > Can someone please advise me if there is a straightforward mechanism to > delete all transactions in these accounts - say, up to and including > 31/12/2016 as I am concerned the file, currently at around 1.3MB, will become > unwieldy and unmanageable. > > Thanks & regards > Jack > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org> > 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. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org> 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. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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.
