Monthly Income/Expense Reports

[David G. Hamblen]

On 04/05/2011 06:22 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> Tony wrote:
>
>> .......
>>
>>
>> Without reviewing the prior discussion, I think I recall this being 
>> about
>> comparative, side-by-side statements for some relevant period (mostly
>> likely, monthly).
>>
>>
>>
> If it is of any use in this discussion -- the side by side 
> presentation of two consecutive fiscal periods is the approved way for 
> non-profits to present their reports so this wouldn't be something 
> just for "personal use".
>
> However as described would still need to be exported into some 
> editable format. For the personal use Tony envisions for purposes of 
> more analysis and for the reports used by non-profits, insertion of 
> any annotation that might be required to explain unusual items.
>
> Precisely what I was told NOT to bother doing (why I have not created 
> such a custom report). Obviously can run within gnucash and export the 
> four parts of this (two income statements and two balance sheets) and 
> then do the combining and further editing in the editor application of 
> the accountant's choice. In effect I was told any accountant would 
> have a very strong personal preference in the way of editors so just 
> give them the raw reports.
>

I agree with you about what goes to the accountant.  For our small 
company, I just send him a spreadsheet with the start balance, total 
debits, total credits, and ending balance for each account.  He can then 
confirm that my start balances agree with his end balance for last year, 
and that there's nothing unusual about the total postings (like new 
asset postings which he may need to depreciate or amortize).  He then 
uses his own software to generate the final financial statements and tax 
returns.

However, for monthly internal managers meetings, the month-to-month 
changes are important, leading to questions like "why were billings so 
low in February, or how does this month compare to the same month last 
year, or why were the utility expenses so different in April?".   This 
usually is presented in the form of a bar chart summarizing things so 
that unusual events stand out, followed up by more detailed looks at the 
underlying data as needed.    For this I typically need one-off reports 
generated on the fly.  They don't have to be pretty.

Dave

> Michael D Novack, FLMI
>
> PS: If you want to tackle this keep in mind that best to first decide 
> how you will handle all the "interesting" situations. For example, the 
> account trees might not be identical for the two periods (some 
> accounts might have been added or moved in the tree). You mustn't 
> assume that there will be corresponding entries for the side by side.
>
In gnucash there's just one account tree (today's).  I don't think 
there's any history.  If I rearrange accounts, the data moves with it.  
If I add an account and start posting to it instead of where I used to 
post, then you're correct - there won't be any old postings in the new 
account or new postings in the old account.   Perhaps that's an argument 
for never modifying an existing account that has postings?





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