Starting a New Company

Problem

The user has incorporated and wants to "start over" with a new set of books in Goldenseal accounting software. They want to keep some of their data from an existing Goldenseal file, but throw some things out.

Diagnosis

This may also happen if they are starting a second company that has some overlap with their first one, or if they want to make a major change to their setup and want to "start over " with their company file.

NOTE-- You really don't need to "start over" with a new file at the end of the year! At Turtlesoft, we have over 20 years of data in our company file, and Goldenseal still works fine. This link has information about how to reduce clutter in a file, and make it run faster. That will probably be easier and better than starting over completely.

Solution

First, prepare the existing company file by marking the items that should be exported to the new file. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Choose Customers from the Accounts menu.
2. Look through each record, and click the More Info button.
3. Turn on the Include In Starter File checkbox if it should go in the new file. Turn off the checkbox if not.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each type of account. NOTE-- Some account classes have the Include In Starter File checkbox on the main screen, and some will require clicking a More Info button.

After the original file is prepared, export the data from it. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Choose Export from the File menu, choose Other Items from the submenu, and choose Starter Data from the second submenu.
2. Choose a file name and a location on the hard drive to save the file.
3. Click Save.
4. Goldenseal accounting software will export lists, unit costs, and any accounts that have Include In Starter File turned on.

Next, start a new company file. It's usually best to start with a starter file, which will contain the latest unit costs and calculators. To get one, follow these steps:

1. Click the link to download the latest starter file from our website. You can also go to our website at http://www.turtlesoft.com, and then click the Downloads button.
2. Decompress the file, and save it on your hard drive in a convenient location.
3. Rename the file to something that is easy to remember.

Finally, import your previous company data into the new file. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Double-click on the new file to open it.
2. Choose Import from the File menu, and choose Company File from the submenu.
3. Locate the file containing the data that you exported from our original company file, and click Open.
4. Goldenseal accounting software will 'merge' the previous file's data into the new company file.

Comments

Entered 5/16/05 by Dennis. Updated 11/5/2010.