Unrealized Gains and Stocks

[Derek Atkins]

Mark Johnson <mrj001 at shaw.ca> writes:

> Wouldn't a balance sheet report give you your net worth?  It is the 
> difference between assets and liabilities shown on the balance sheet 
> (may be called something different than net worth, like "owner's 
> equity.  Sorry; don't have time to try the report).  You should be able 
> to adjust the report options to show different dates, although this may 
> be strange with the balance sheet as it is a point in time, but the 
> options still give a range.

The reason for the "range" in the Balance sheet is to decide
what goes into "retained earnings" and what goes into "change
in equity" (e.g. profit/loss)..  I realize it's "confusing" to
a real accountant, but a real accountant would run an Income
Report for the period and then apply the change in income to
the Balance Sheet.  We don't have the luxury of doing that,
so the balance sheet report includes the date information that
you'd have used on the income report....

> Hope this helps, sorry about the rushed answer,
> Mark

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available