Question about reports

Mike or Penny Novack stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com
Tue Oct 4 07:40:43 EDT 2011


Jay Ridgley wrote:

> Folks,
>
> Is there a way to cause a negative figure in a report to show either 
> with parentheses and/or print in red?
>
> I ran an Income Statement and currently we are in a small deficit 
> condition for the year (not unexpected). I would like the line that 
> shows the total loss to display as indicated above. Perhaps with the 
> wording-
>
> Net Profit/(Loss) for the Period:
>
I think this may perhaps be a misunderstanding.

Each account has a debit side and a credit side and each account has a 
"sense" depending on which side of the ledger its balance would usually 
be if positive. If, for this account, the balance is on the other side 
we think of that as a negative balance. ORIGINALLY (old pen and ink on 
paper bookkeeping) the "Profit and Loss" report was an account of type 
Equity into each of the Income and Expense accounts (temporary accounts 
of type Equity) were closed and then the balance of this account closed 
into main Equity as the final "close the books" operation.

No negative numbers, just debit side or credit side. If you SWITCH sides 
then the amount becomes negative and is shown either in red or more 
usually, inside a parenthesis.

Get it? Depends on the side of the ledger. In this case GnuCash is 
simply doing the report without closing the accounts into a temporary 
account called "Profit and Loss" so there is no implied side to an 
account. GnuCash was free to change the label from "net gain for period" 
to "net loss for period". Take another look at what you are asking 
about. Are you saying that GnuCash mislabled the result? Called it a 
"gain" and showed it as positive when in fact you had a loss? Or did it 
label it a "loss" and show it as positive? A negative gain and a 
positive loss are the same thing.

Michael




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