Brian, Brian the Retained Earnings is a component of the total Equity of the business that records what the operation of the business has contributed to the Equity. When a distribution is paid it is paid out of Equity and if it is debited to the Shareholder Distributions and credited to the Asset:Bank account then it has decreased the Equity appropriately. If you were to also debit it from Equity:Retained Earnings what is the other account for the debit side of the transaction? You will have decreased the equity twice for the one distribution to the shareholders and Retained Earnings will no longer reflect the operational contribution to the Equity of the business. The shareholder distribution is not part of the operational aspect of the business but a part of its capital/financing structure.
David Cousens ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
