Retained Earnings

[Doctorcam]

* Derek Atkins (warlord at MIT.EDU) wrote the following:
> The Balance Sheet in 1.8 is a little confusing.  The version in SVN is 
> better. Basically, the retained earnings computation is trying to mimic 
> the "closing
> the books" by computing the Income and Expense differences between the 
> time the
> balance sheet is run and the time the books would have been "closed" as Net
> Profit, and the values at that time as the Retained Earnings.
> 
> In other words, it's computing what would happen if you zeroed out your 
> Income
> and Expense accounts at the start of the period.
> 

Thank you for this.  It's more or less what I expected, but I am too
lazy to go poking through other reports.

Your explanation might imply that somehow any activity between the
"closed" date, and the subsequent date on which the report is actually
run, is included. I assume that is not true, and that you are referring
to the "From" and "To" dates, the latter being the "closed" date. 

When I run last year's Balance Sheet, which started with both Income
and Expenses at $0.00, the RE figure is a not-insignificant negative
amount.  Your explanation suggests that gnucash should be calculating
a positive value for RE (since Income was greater than Expenses).  Am
I missing something here - like a sign reversal?

I think that because we set up a split to zero both Income and
Expenses on the last day of the FY, in order to close properly, we end
up with a figure that relates to the rest in a non-obvious way.

I'm looking forward to 2.0  :-)  Do you still expect a December
freeze and roll-out, or are we looking at the New Year?  Or should I
piss off and quit asking unanswerable questions? ;-^)

Thanks - and for everything you do on this package

Cam

-- 
Cam Ellison  Ph.D.  R.Psych. #01417

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