How can I import customers and invoices from a previous year's Gnucash file?
There does not appear to be a way to export the customers and invoices nor a way to import them into another data file if you could export them. However, as said in the comments to your question, your question seems predicated upon the notion that it is 'best practice' to create a new data file each year. This is not considered necessary It should be noted that GnuCash reports should be able to provide   accurate year-end data for accounting purposes without zeroing   transactions, so book-closing may not be necessary. Leaving books   unclosed does mean that account balances in the Chart of Accounts will   not show Year-To-Date amounts.   - Closing Books GnuCash Wiki The above linked wiki page has several methods to 'close the books' if that is what you want to do - but it is not necessary. There is even a description on how to create a new file for the new year which only talks about setting up the new accounts and transactions - nothing about customers, invoices etc. Note that you can 'close the books' without creating a new data file. In summary: you cannot do it; but you don't need to create a new file for the new year so you don't need to do it.
"You don't. No one uses vanilla double entry accounting software for ""Held-For-Trading Security"".  Your broker or trading software is responsible for providing month-end statement of changes.  You use ""Mark To Market"" valuation at the end of each month.  For example, if your cash position is -$5000 and stock position is +$10000, all you do is write-up/down the account value to $5000.  There should be no sub-accounts for your ""Investment"" account in GNUCash.  So at the end of the month, there would be the following entries:" Check the Financial section in this list of Open Source Software You could keep an eye on BankSimple perhaps? I think it looks interesting at least... too bad I don't live in the US... They are planning to create an API where you can do everything you can do normally. So when that is released you could probably create your own command-line interface :) If you were a business, all your assets would have a dollar value, so when you sold them you'd decrease the amount of assets by that amount and increase in cash, and if there was a profit on the sale it would go in as income, if there was loss it would count as a cost (or a loss)... so if there was a profit it would increase Equity, a loss then it would decrease Equity.  Since it's not really worthwhile doing a estimated cost for everything that you have, I'd just report it as income like you are doing and let the amount of equity increase proportionately. So, implicitly you always had roughly that amount of equity, but some of it was in the form of assets, and now you're liquidating those assets so the amount shows up in GnuCash. When you buy new things you might sell later, you could consider adding them as assets to keep track of this explicitly (but even then you have problems-- the price of things changes with time and you might not want to keep up with those price changes, it's a lot of extra work for a family budget) -- for stuff you already have it's better to treat things as you are doing and just treat the money as income-- it's easier and doesn't really change anything-- you always had that in equity, some of it was just off the books and now you are bringing it into the books. You would need to use Trading Accounts. You can enable this, File->Properties->Account settings tab, and check Use Trading Accounts. For more details see the following site: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Trading_Accounts The GnuCash manual has a page with examples of opening new accounts. The tl;dr is: use the Equity:Opening Balance to offset your original amounts. The further explanation from the GnuCash page is: As shown earlier with the Assets:Checking account, the starting   balances in an account are typically assigned to a special account   called Equity:Opening Balance. To start filling in this chart of   account, begin by setting the starting balances for the accounts.   Assume that there is $1000 in the savings account and $500 charged on   the credit card. Open the Assets:Savings account register. Select View from the menu and check to make sure you are in Basic Ledger style. You will   view your transactions in the other modes later, but for now let’s   enter a basic transaction using the basic default style. From the Assets:Savings account register window, enter a basic 2 account transaction to set your starting balance to $1000, transferred   from Equity:Opening Balance. Remember, basic transactions transfer   money from a source account to a destination account. Record the   transaction (press the Enter key, or click on the Enter icon). From the Assets:Checking account register window, enter a basic 2 account transaction to set your starting balance to $1000, transferred   from Equity:Opening Balance. From the Liabilities:Visa account register window, enter a basic 2 account transaction to set your starting balance to $500, transferred   from Equity:Opening Balance. This is done by entering the $500 as a   charge in the Visa account (or decrease in the Opening Balance   account), since it is money you borrowed. Record the transaction   (press the Enter key, or click on the Enter icon). You should now have 3 accounts with opening balances set. Assets:Checking, Assets:Savings, and Liabilities:Visa. "You say your primary goal is to clean up your credit report, and you're willing to spend some cash to do it.   OK.  But beware: the law in this area is a funhouse mirror, everything works upside down and backwards. To start, let's be clear: Credit reports are not extortion to force you into paying. They are a historical record of your creditworthiness, and almost impossible to fix without altering history.  Paying on this debt will affirm the old data was correct, and glue it to your report.  Here's how credit reporting works for R-9 (sent to collections) amounts.  The data is on your credit report for 7 years.  The danger is in this clock being restarted.  What will not restart the clock?  Ignoring the debt, talking casusally to collectors, and the debt being sold from one collector to another.  What will restart the clock? Acknowledging the debt formally, court judgment, paying the debt, or paying on the debt (obviously, paying acknowledges the debt.)  Crazy!  You could have a debt that's over 7 years old, pay it because you're a decent person, and BOOM! Clock restarts and 7 more years of bad luck.  Even worse-- if they write-off or forgive any part of the debt, that's income and you'll need to pay income tax on it.  Ugh!  Like I say, the only way to remove a bad mark is to alter history. Simple fact:   The collector doesn't care about your bad credit mark; he wants money. And it costs a lot of money, time and/or stress for both of you to demand they research it, negotiate, play phone-tag, and ultimately go to court.  So this works very well (this is just the guts, you have to add all the who, what, where, signature block, formalities etc.):   1 Company and Customer absolutely disagree as to whether Customer owes   Company this debt: (explicitly named debt with numbers and amount) 2 But Company and Customer both eagerly agree that the expense, time, and   stress of research, negotiation, and litigation is burdensome for both of us.    We both strongly desire a quick, final and no-fault solution.  Therefore:  3 Parties agree Customer shall pay Company (acceptable fraction here).    Payment within 30 days.  To be acknowledged in writing by Company.  4 This shall be absolute and final resolution.  5 NO-FAULT.  Parties agree this settlement resolves the matter in good faith.   Parties agree this settlement is done for practical reasons, this bill has not been established as a valid debt, and any difference between billed and settled amount is not a canceled nor forgiven debt.  6 Neither party nor its assigns will make any adverse statements to third parties relating to this bill or agreement.  Parties agree they have a continuous duty to remove adverse statements, and agree to do so within seven days of request.  7 Parties specifically agree no adverse mark nor any mark of any kind shall be placed on Customer's credit report; and in the event such a mark appears, Parties will disavow it continuously.  Parties agree that a good credit report has a monetary value and specific impacts on a customer's life.  8 Jurisdiction of law shall be where the effects are felt, and that shall be (place of service) regarding the amounts of the bill proper.  Severable, inseparable, counterparts, witness, signature lines blah blah. A collector is gonna sign this because it's free money and it's not tricky.  What does this do?  1, 2 and 5 alter history to make the debt never have existed in the first place.  To do this, it must formally answer the question of why the heck would you pay a debt that isn't real and you don't owe: out of sheer practicality; it's cheaper than Rogaine.  This is your ""get out of jail free"" card both with the credit bureaus and the IRS.   Of course, 3 gives the creditor motivation to go along with it.  6 says they can't burn your credit. 7 says it again and they're agreeing you can sue for cash money.  8 lets you pick the court.  The collector won't get hung up on any of these since he can easily remove the bad mark. (don't be mad that they won't do it ""for free"", that's what 3 is for.)  The key to getting them to take a settlement is to be reasonable and fair.  Make sure the agreement works for them too.  6 says you can't badmouth them on social media. 4 and 5 says it can't be used against them. 8 throws them a bone by letting them sue in their home court for the bill they just settled (a right they already had).  If it's medical, add ""HIPAA does not apply to this document"" to save them a ton of paperwork.  Make it easy for them. You want the collector to take it to his boss and say ""this is pretty good. Do it.""  Don't send the money until their signed copy is in your hands.  Then send promptly with an SASE for the receipt.  Make it easy for them.  This is on you.  As far as ""getting them to send you an offer"", creditors are reluctant to mail things especially to people they don't think will pay, because it costs them money to write and send.  So you may need to be proactive about running them down with your offer.  Like I say, it's a funhouse mirror." "GNUCash won't show 'Credit Card' type accounts in ""Process Payment"", as of v.2.6.1. A workaround is to create another  account of type A/Payable. Then, transfer the operations you want to pay via ""Process Payment"" to this new account. It should be visible now. A drawback is that you have split your current Credit Card debt, which makes it harder to track. Alternatively you may wish to only use this new account for all your credit card related expenses. Another alternative is processing payments for these purchases manually to keep the 'credit card' accounts consistent." There isn't one. I haven't been very happy with anything I've tried, commercial or open source. I've used Quicken for a while and been fairly happy with the user experience, but I hate the idea of their sunset policy (forced upgrades) and using proprietary format for the data files. Note that I wouldn't mind using proprietary and/or commercial software if it used a format that allowed me to easily migrate to another application. And no, QIF/OFX/CSV doesn't count. What I've found works well for me is to use Mint.com for pulling transactions from my accounts and categorizing them. I then export the transaction history as a CSV file and convert it to QIF/OFX using csv2ofx, and then import the resulting file into GNUCash. The hardest part is using categories (Mint.com) and accounts (GnuCash) properly. Not perfect by any means, but certainly better than manually exporting transactions from each account. I would say when starting with Gnucash to start with the level of granularity you are comfortable with while sticking to the double entry bookkeeping practices. So going through each one: Refund for Parking Pass. Assuming you treat the Parking Pass as a sunk cost, i.e. an Expense account, its just a negative entry in the Expense account which turns into a positive one in your Bank account. Yes it may look weird, and if you don't like it you can always 'pay from Equity' the prior month, or your Bank Account if you're backfilling old statements. Selling physical items. If you sold it on eBay and the value is high enough you'll get tax forms indicating you've earned x. Even if its small or not done via eBay, treat it the same way and create a 'Personal Items/Goods' Income account to track all of it. So the money you get in your Bank account would have come from there. Found jacket money would be an Equity entry, either Opening Balances into Cash or Bank account. Remember you are treating Equity / Opening Balances as the state before you started recording every transaction so both the value going into Assets (Banks,Stock,Mutual Funds) and Liabilities (Mortgage, Student Debt, Credit Card Debt) originate from there. "You are right on track with your idea of setting up a separate account for invoiced income. Create a new account with the type other asset and call it ""Receivables"" (or something similar). Every time you invoice a client, enter a credit to this account with the amount of the invoice. Once the client pays and you deposit a check, enter a transfer from the ""Receivables"" account to the bank account. EDIT I overlooked that you wish to account for not-yet-invoiced income. I think that's a bad idea. It will become confusing and will give you the false sense that your financial condition is better than it really is. There are plenty of stories about businesses that have stellar sales, but fail because of lack of cash flow (the business' bills become due before it gets paid by its own customers)." My bank will let me download credit card transactions directly into a personal finance program, and by assigning categories to stores I can get at least a rough overview of that sidd of things, and then adjust categories/splits when needed. Ditto checks. Most of my spending is covered by those. Doesn't help with cash transactions, though; if I want to capture those accurately I need to save receipts. There are ocr products which claim to help capture those; haven't tried them. Currently, since my spending is fairly stable, I'm mostly leaving those as unknown; that wouldn't work for you. I just decided to start using GnuCash today, and I was also stuck in this position for around an hour before I figured out what to do exactly. The answer by @jldugger pointed me partially on the right track, so this answer is intended to help people waste less time in the future.  (Note: All numbers have been redacted for privacy issues, but I hope the images are sufficient to allow you to understand what is going on. ) Upon successfully importing your transactions, you should be able to see your transactions in the Checking Account and Savings Account (plus additional accounts you have imported). The Imbalance account (GBP in my case) will be negative of whatever you have imported. This is due to the double-entry accounting system that GnuCash uses.    Now, you will have to open your Savings Account.   Note that except for a few transactions, most of them are going to Imbalance. These are marked out with the red rectangles.   What you have to do, now, is to click on them individually and sort them into the correct account. Unfortunately (I do not understand why they did this), you cannot move multiple transactions at once. See also this thread. Fortunately, you only have to do this once.  This is what your account should look like after it is complete.   After this is done, you should not have to move any more accounts, since you can directly enter the transactions in the Transfer box. At this point, your Accounts tab should look like this:  Question solved! "The answer was provided to me at the Gnucash chat by ""warlord"". The procedure is as follows: After doing this you will have:" so... asset price inflation decoupled from fundamentals (thank you QE) along with rise in ETF (notorious depressant on volatility) means options trader are underestimating volatility? Who calculates the daily spreads between HV and IV, anyone? Im new to this.