GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 547383
Add relative yearly period starting at dates other than Jan 1st - Dec 31st
Last modified: 2018-06-29 22:08:33 UTC
GnuCash preferences should allow for relative accounting periods other than from the start of the calendar year. Transaction reports, for instance, have Report Options allowing the report to go from the "Start of Financial Period". This period is defined in the general Preferences as "Accounting Period". The Start and End Dates of the financial period may be defined by Absolute Date, but you've also provided the very useful alternative of Relative Date. The Relative Dates could be from the current or previous month or quarter (for monthly or quarterly reports), or from the start of this year for annual reports. The problem is that very often, at least in Australia, the annual financial year does NOT start with the calendar year on 1 Jan. In Australia the normal financial year is 1 July - 30 June (I think companies may choose other starting months, depending on the size of the company). This essentially means the Accounting Period relative date options in GnuCash are mostly useless for Australians processing annual reports. A quick poke on the web (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year) suggests many other countries also start financial years from any number of dates other than 1 Jan. It would therefore be extremely useful for GnuCash to allow the definition of relative financial years starting from months other than January. Other information:
Um, Edit -> Preferences -> [ Accounting Period ]
Um, that is precisely the dialog box I am talking about...
Exactly, so I dont see what you're complaining about. You can set Period start/end in the preferences, and then when you run a report you can select the appropriate time period for your report. And you can most certainly select months other than January. So I am again closing this bug as Invalid because you can currently do everything you're asking.
It does not do what I'm after. I'm referring to the *relative* date for the Accounting Period, not the "absolute" date. You're right that the *absolute* date can be set to any date. I am not referring to the absolute date. I understand that the utility of the *relative* date is to allow the same relative accounting period to be always set, without having to specific which year you are currently in. That is, as far as annual reports are concerned, the relative date allows you to always be working within the current financial year. Since the *relative* annual date only allows for "Start of this year", it does not cater for financial years starting (every year) from months other than January. *Relative* financial years are not available in Preferences for months other than January.
And the "Start of Financial Period" and "End of Financial Period" settings don't work because....????
"Start of Financial Period" is used in the Reports Options under the General tab. They work fine. The report is successfully generated from 1 Jan. What I need is to define it from 1 July (as a relative date). At issue here is the definition of that Financial Period, as defined in Edit -> Preferences -> [ Accounting Period ]. Please ask for assistance from others if you don't understand the missing behaviour addressed by this bug report.
Aha, now I understand what you're talking about. Your summary (and most of your original request) didn't really properly explain the problem you are having (so I've adjusted the summary, and changed it to the proper component). You *can* have a period that doesn't start on January 1. All you need to do is set a period to start on any date you wish. However you cannot have a RELATIVE yearly period that doesn't start on January 1st. Yes, that is definitely a bug. The issue appears to be that you have to set an exact date (including the year) instead of a relative date. Ideally, the preference should allow one to set just a Month and Day (without the year). E.g., you set "start July 1, end June 30", and then the system would choose the correct year. A related bug is that the reports should be able to select "Current Period" and "Previous Period". As a workaround, you can set the start/end dates with years (i.e. in a non-relative manner) and then adjust it once a year when you want to change the period. So you could e.g. set the start date to July 1, 2008 and the end date to June 30, 2009 -- and then reset it in 2009 when your period changes.
Thanks, looks like we're on the same track now. Sorry for not making it clearer in the first place!
Sorry, I saw this whole posting and I seem to have a more fundamental problem. Using 2.2.6 windows install. I cannot change the "absolute" accounting period at all. If I choose 31-03-2009 as the end date it keeps defaulting back to current date or at times to 01-03-2009. Running on Windows Vista as an adminstrator. Is this a bug or just a usage/set-up problem. I am a recent user.
Re comment 9: That's bug 545722, which has been fixed for the 2.2.7 release (due shortly).
This enhancement request has been around for a long time and I'd have thought ti would significantly improve the program's usability for most non-US users. Is there any way to get it pushed up the priority list?
GnuCash bug tracking has moved to a new Bugzilla host. The new URL for this bug is https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547383. Please continue processing the bug there and please update any external references or bookmarks.