Cashflow report amd credit margin question

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

> I'm using the new cashflow report. It works better but it's making me
> realise that maybe I'm not entering data correctly. Specifically, at the
> start of the year, I entered my credit margin as an opening balance in
> Equity. I'm thinking that wasn't the right thing to do. When I run the
> report, it puts my opening balance as Money In. It should really be
> money out. So I'm pretty sure, it's my fault, if it isn't. In what
> account should I enter this?
>
> Also, what is the cash flow report supposed to measure? I'm asking
> because by default, it takes into accountmy opening balances as (Equity
> | Opening Balance) as Money In, where I don't really think it should be
> money In. It's just money that was there. Money In should be money
> that's added, no? I'm no accountant so I may be totally out there. My
> account isn't totally set up yet. In particular, my mortgage isn't
> entered correctly in my accounts. If I enter it, the cashflow report
> willsay that I have negative cashflow in the 100,000's won't it? But
> that doesn't reflect reality. In reality,  my cashflow is positive but I
> have a lot of liabilities. Or something.
> 
> If anyone cares to untangle this for me, I'd be real happy!

You have an interesting point here.  Normally what I do is set the
transaction dats of the opening balance before the beginning of the
period.  So for example, the opening balances on my 2003 data are all
dated 12/31/2002.  As as result of this, they don't show up on the
default cash-flow, because they are not in the current year.

Having said that...  I don't know how the cash-flow report should
treat transactions that touch equity accounts.  I'm certainly open to
suggestions.  Right now the cash-flow report does not treat Equity
accounts as special, but I agree that perhaps it should.

Note that it's likely that other reports have a similar problem.

Any suggestions from the user community?

-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