Accounting for dividends

[Paul A.]

I've always wondered about the right way to do this, even though it's not
something I need to deal with right now.  For an unincorporated business,
there's the equivalent that I've seen called "proprietor's drawings"; it's
the money taken out of the business by the owners, presumably out of
profits.

The thing that makes dividends so tricky is that they are not an expense. 
Treating them as an expense screws up the P&L statement.  Yet you don't
really want them accumulating in some flavor of an equity account, because
money paid out in dividends or drawings is not in the business treasury any
more.

Quicken gets this wrong.  It seems that GnuCash does also, but maybe I'm
just missing something.


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