"In accounting the delta is called a Profit and Loss report or Income
Statement."
Well, yes and no. While this intimate relationship between Balance
Sheets and Income Statements is Accounting 101 -- I usually use the
"fence and fence posts" analogy to explain them to neophytes -- I
believe the delta Stuart is discussing here is the net change of each
account between the Balance Sheet of date A and of date B.
Obviously the totals of the two things will match, as the overall income
less expense always equals the net change in equity on the balance
sheet. But the Income Statement lists the incomes and expenses per
account (eg. widgets sold, components purchased), whereas delta column
shows the difference in the assets and liabilities (eg. bank accounts,
inventory) between the first and second balance sheet columns.
Paul
On 2026-07-25 6:11 a.m., Wm Tarr wrote:
On 2026-07-25 10:59, Stuart Longland VK4MSL via gnucash-user wrote:
Hi Paul,
On 20/7/26 13:05, Paul Kroitor wrote:
Actually that’s just what the Balance Sheet (Multicolumn) does right
out of the box.
Just set the period and the range and it gives you the balance sheet
at each point in time in columns.
For example, I have one set of books (for a complex estate) where it
suits me to have columns for Balance at Death, after one year, two
years, and three years.
But it has no option to create intermediate column showing net
difference (change). For that, one must export to a spreadsheet.
Yes, the multi-column balance sheet actually gets very close, just
lacking that "delta" column.
In accounting the delta is called a Profit and Loss report or Income
Statement.
As others have suggested your old way of doing things was ad-hoc. A
standard set of minimal reports is, Balance sheet at start (actually
end of day before start), Balance sheet at end and Income Statement to
explain what happened in between, the delta you refer to.
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