On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 9:59 AM Michael or Penny Novack < [email protected]> wrote:
> Sorry, but this isn't really a gnucash question. > > By which I mean if you knew how to do this (by the standards of your > jurisdiction) were the books being kept the old fashioned way, pen and > ink on paper, you would have little difficulty doing it with the books > being kept using gnucash. The "retained earnings" (or "losses" shown by > gnucash in the Balance sheet are for a VIRTUAL account representing the > UNCLOSED income and expense accounts. > > It looks like you would be wanting to use explicit accounts (in equity) > which you can do by closing the books the old fashioned way (ignore the > gnucash "close the books" tool). On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 11:48 AM Adrien Monteleone < [email protected]> wrote: > The GnuCash workflow doesn't include 'closing the books'. > > That function was added by request, but it is entirely optional. I need to do three things after a given financial reporting period: * produce a report that communicates revenues and expenses over the period * produce a report that communicates the final balances at the end of the period * produce a report that communicates any changes in shareholder equity that occurred over the period It looks like I can accomplish the first two things with the built-in Income Statement and Balance Sheet reports without doing any kind of closing process (built-in or manual) so that works fine. For the third objective, I believe the Equity Statement report will pick up on net income (or loss) as well as capital investments even if I refrain from closing the books, so that works fine too. To finish up the third objective, how would I enter a dividend into the GnuCash so it shows up on the report? If I was using an explicit account, I would probably choose to debit Retained Earnings equity account and credit a Dividends Payable liability account to declare a dividend. In this case where I'm sticking with the virtual Retained Earnings (or Losses) account, I believe I won't be able to do that. Thanks for the explanation about the virtual accounts, good stuff to know. Let me know if I'm missing something with this last bit. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
