You got it Or you can open other accounts in equity if desired.
On Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 1:19 AM Dan Schultz <[email protected]> wrote: > I finally get it -- I *CAN* add manual entries balanced against the > Equity:Earnings:Current account to register whatever equity transfers I > need; I just need to explicitly open it first! > > This is because whenever I run a report with a CLEAR it will generate the > closing transactions (for the sake of the report) into that special > `Equity:Earnings:Current` (no problem at all that the account already > existed before running the report!). > > Thank you all for helping me to the point of clarity :D > > Best, > - Dan > > On Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 12:47:58 AM UTC-4 Dan Schultz wrote: > >> > The idea of "close at any time" just means that the calculation for net >> income and transfer to a summarized set of equity accounts happens at the >> time of reporting and is automated. >> >> I had interpreted this line (see below) from Scott's email as the reason >> why the manual entries are ideally avoided, but appreciate I may not >> understand (I apologize / thanks for bearing with me): >> >> > You could, but there's no need to, explicitly zero out income and >> expenses, but if you chose to do that it locks you into fixed schedule >> reporting because a report that spans the end of the fiscal year will have >> the odd artifacts of the zeroing transactions. >> >> To confirm I'm understanding, if I run: >> >> ``` >> SELECT account, sum(position) FROM OPEN ON 2017-01-01 CLOSE ON 2018-01-01 >> WHERE account ~ "Income|Expenses" GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1; >> ``` >> >> I get that beautiful report which tells me my income and expenses for 2017 >> >> If I were to add manual entries at the end of the fiscal year, wouldn't I >> end up dirtying that report? I'd need to balance the equity changes >> against the net profit / Equity:Earnings:Current, (which would require >> me manually zeroing out the income / expense accounts) right? >> >> Just a sanity check: when we're talking about querying we aren't talking >> about something I do *in* the register / can write followup transactions >> against, right? I am under the impression that the book closing queries >> don't actually translate to closed positions outside of the query's output. >> >> Best, >> - Dan >> >> On Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 12:10:01 AM UTC-4 [email protected] wrote: >> >>> The idea of "close at any time" just means that the calculation for net >>> income and transfer to a summarized set of equity accounts happens at the >>> time of reporting and is automated. Nothing prevents you from adding equity >>> accounts and creating manual entries at the end of your fiscal year. >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 12:03 AM Dan Schultz <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> Thank you both -- this makes sense (and I'm finally getting through the >>>> query language documentation which, as I believe / hope I'm correctly >>>> understanding, is where that closing-from-whatever-date would occur!) >>>> >>>> As a followup: how would I handle account for changes to equity with >>>> this approach? To be clear I'm talking about net profit that hasn't be >>>> distributed / the asset still exists in the company. >>>> >>>> Specifically, we report allocations for each partner to tax authorities >>>> based on an annual reporting period; this is where our targeted allocation >>>> formulas kick in, etc. >>>> >>>> I'm having trouble meshing the "close any time" concept with the >>>> ability to track that equity allocation -- particularly in a situation >>>> where partners might join or leave over time, or might have different >>>> targeted allocations of a given annual profit. >>>> >>>> I hope the problem / question makes sense. >>>> >>>> Note: one idea I had is that maybe I need to just create parallel >>>> register purely to track equity. It would ONLY track contributions, >>>> distributions, balanced against cash -- and end-of-year allocations >>>> balanced against {some well named account}. The separation and slight >>>> duplication makes this an imperfect concept... but I'd love to know if it's >>>> my best bet! >>>> >>>> Or... is there some way to give beancount a "hint" about how I want >>>> equity to get distributed when books close for a given period (e.g. a set >>>> of transactions against the `Equity:Earnings:Current` that only gets >>>> recognized when running CLEAR queries?) >>>> >>>> On Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 10:54:47 PM UTC-4 [email protected] >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> +1 to all that >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2022 at 5:35 PM Scott <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> I'm relatively new to beancount, so I have a limited picture at this >>>>>> point, but here's my understanding: >>>>>> >>>>>> beancount is designed to allow closing of the books at arbitrary >>>>>> points in time. The benefit of this is that you can run reports for >>>>>> whatever time period you'd like and have the effect of that being the >>>>>> 'accounting period'. The downside to this is that since there's no >>>>>> formal/explicit closing of the books, there are not necessarily fixed >>>>>> journal entries corresponding to that action. This means that as an >>>>>> auditing tool, you need to be a bit careful with beancount, because (for >>>>>> better and worse) there's nothing to guarantee that you won't/can't >>>>>> modify >>>>>> the journal after the end of the reporting period. >>>>>> >>>>>> I imagine, that you'd thus want to put your ledger under version >>>>>> control, and check it in at the end of the fiscal year. The reports for >>>>>> the >>>>>> fiscal year would show revenue and you'd then draw from assets to pay >>>>>> shareholders accordingly. You could, but there's no need to, explicitly >>>>>> zero out income and expenses, but if you chose to do that it locks you >>>>>> into >>>>>> fixed schedule reporting because a report that spans the end of the >>>>>> fiscal >>>>>> year will have the odd artifacts of the zeroing transactions. >>>>>> >>>>>> Clearly my understanding is limited ;) But I'm also using beancount >>>>>> for a small business, so hopefully others will weigh in if I'm too far >>>>>> off >>>>>> the mark. >>>>>> >>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>> -Scott >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 9:07:39 AM UTC-7 [email protected] >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm looking to close the books for a pay period (zero-out the income >>>>>>> / expense accounts into a revenue summary account so I can distribute >>>>>>> equity among my partners). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I saw some mention that there is the concept of "clearing", which >>>>>>> would automatically generate transactions to close the books for a given >>>>>>> pay period but I'm not seeing it documented anywhere. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Is there a ledger entry I can use to signal the end of a period >>>>>>> which would trigger that kind of action; or maybe a command / plugin >>>>>>> folks >>>>>>> use to generates the needed transactions? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Best, >>>>>>> - Dan >>>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>>>> Groups "Beancount" group. >>>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, >>>>>> send an email to [email protected]. >>>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/5a38c51b-facd-4ed5-97e2-b63f2efb4e18n%40googlegroups.com >>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/5a38c51b-facd-4ed5-97e2-b63f2efb4e18n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>>>>> . >>>>>> >>>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "Beancount" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/46c48ad2-2502-4a9c-bdc8-56a71cd4ce11n%40googlegroups.com >>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/46c48ad2-2502-4a9c-bdc8-56a71cd4ce11n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>>> . >>>> >>> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/7f0d2ac5-87ce-4917-bcac-a1b68410fd6fn%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/7f0d2ac5-87ce-4917-bcac-a1b68410fd6fn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. 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