Re: [GNC] Setting start/end dates on "General Journal" and "Balance Sheet (eguile-gnc)

On 2026-07-25 10:59, Stuart Longland VK4MSL via gnucash-user wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> On 20/7/26 13:05, Paul Kroitor wrote:
>> Actually that’s just what the Balance Sheet (Multicolumn) does right
>> out of the box.
>>
>> Just set the period and the range and it gives you the balance sheet
>> at each point in time in columns.
>>
>> For example, I have one set of books (for a complex estate) where it
>> suits me to have columns for Balance at Death, after one year, two
>> years, and three years.
>>
>> But it has no option to create intermediate column showing net
>> difference (change). For that, one must export to a spreadsheet.
>
> Yes, the multi-column balance sheet actually gets very close, just 
> lacking that "delta" column.
>
In accounting the delta is called a Profit and Loss report or Income 
Statement.

As others have suggested your old way of doing things was ad-hoc.  A 
standard set of minimal reports is, Balance sheet at start (actually end 
of day before start), Balance sheet at end and Income Statement to 
explain what happened in between, the delta you refer to.


> I realise it can be manually added later, but that's a lot of manual 
> fiddling that I was hoping could be avoided.  We started with 
> spreadsheets, having to copy it back into one to compute an extra 
> column seems wrong.
>
> By the sounds of things, it allows for more than just two columns, so 
> one would have to choose which two columns you wanted the delta 
> computed on in that case.

Once you have the accounts balanced between old and new scrap the 
spreadsheet way of thinking, it was wrong.  Registered non-profits (or 
whatever they are called where you are) normally have to produce 
standardised accounts which will be much closer to what we are 
suggesting than what your old spreadsheet did.

Wm


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