Retained Earnings from Previous Year

[Derek Atkins]

GENERALLY you don't supply starting balances to Income and Expense
accounts, but if you're starting your accounting in the middle of an
accounting period and don't want to supply the historic data then you
can do so.  You can choose to use a different Equity account.
Personally I don't think it matters, but IANAA.

I suggest you ask your accountant how he wants to see it recorded.

-derek

Roger Miskowicz <aretae at magma.ca> writes:

> Thanks Derek. 
>  
> I have done that for the most part but I am not sure how to do that with
> respect to "Current Earnings" or "Net Income" from previous years.
>  
> In Simply Accounting "Current Earnings" is a separate account under Retained
> Earnings.  In GnuCash I understand that is included in the "Retained Earnings"
> acount directly.
>  
> Please understand my knowledge of accounting is quite limited so I can easily
> be misunderstanding what is happening and what is supposed to be happening.
>  
> Roger
>
> On Fri 02/10/09 09:50 , Derek Atkins warlord at MIT.EDU sent:
>
>> Roger Miskowicz aretae at magma.
>
>> ca> writes:
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>>
>
>>
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>> > I am migrating from Simply Accounting to GnuCash and
>
>> need to set the
>
>> > Retained Earnings from the previous year.
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>> >
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>>
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>> > What is the proper way to do that?
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>> It's just a standard Opening Balance transaction from Equity:Opening
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>> Balance to the accounts in question.
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>> > Thanks,
>
>>
>
>> > Roger
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>>
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>>
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>>
>
>> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>
>>
>
>> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
>>
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>> -derek
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>>
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>> --
>
>>
>
>> 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.E
>
>> DU PGP key available
>
>>
>
>>
>
>>
>

-- 
       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