What to do if you haven't used the program for awhile

[turboultra]

It's been ages since I've used the program, and so account balances are out of date and there is a large gap in the records. I don't think most of the records from that long ago will be useful anymore, so I'm thinking of deleting/reinstalling the program and starting afresh. Alternatively, I could use account balance corrections to bring my accounts up to date and start inputting records again.

A few of the existing records are still current, for instance my car (as I still use it).

What would you recommend?

[shortki]

If the break was great, I recommend to start accounting with a “clean slate”, perhaps, having moved several records with particularly important assets. The most significant are financial data for the last six months or a year, the older data are important to assess the dynamics of turnover. Comparing the most recent data with the outdated, you will gain a distorted view of the trends and build false predictions, in such a situation it is better to try to accumulate the latest statistics and rely on it.

[turboultra]

I've started with a clean slate. I've added my accounts to the app with their current balances.

The issue is adding expenses which come from an account prior to the date I added the account. For instance, I added my credit card yesterday evening with its current balance. Then I added an expense - the diary I bought yesterday afternoon. Now my credit card balance is shown as incorrect, because the account opening balance already included all prior purchases, including the diary, and the app applied the cost of the diary again.

I was expecting the app to assume that all prior transactions were included in the opening account balance.

Should I have calculated what my credit card balance was before I bought the diary, and used that figure to open the account? This could be problematic if I follow your suggestion and backdate important assets like my car.

[shortki]

There are no opening balances in the application, when you adjust the account balance, the program automatically creates a corresponding transaction that changes the account balance. When you enter earlier records you will need to reduce the amount of the corrective transaction, so that the balance remains unchanged, or, alternatively, you can enter a corrective transaction with the opposite direction and the same amount that you entered, but with the service type.