GAAP Indirect Statement of Cash Flows

[whwtan]

Hi David,

I believe you are asking for a common feature in most paid 
accounting/bookkeeping products out there in the market: A report which 
generates the GAAP/IFS statement of cash flows equivalent within the 
application without external manual work. (In fact, I have yet to find 
any popular paid accounting software which does not have this feature.)

Gnucash does not have that feature.
However if you understand how the indirect method is done, as Mike as 
explained, you should be able to do it manually from extracting the 
information.

Not being able to produce it with a few clicks within the software 
almost made me avoid using Gnucash initially but you'll find a lot of 
pleasant things about it especially if you deal with multiple 
currencies. (Integrity of my balance sheet far outweighs a feature I 
really wanted.)

And I have, in my personal opinion, found Gnucash to have one of the 
most amazing mailing list (brilliant helpful people) and written 
documentation (very well documented tutorial/manual) out there.

William

On 30/10/2013 4:51 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
>
>>
>> My apologies if this has been answered but I can't find anything in the
>> archives or via Google queries that indicate how to do this. How does 
>> one
>> generate an indirect statement of cash flows from Gnucash?
>>
>> In other words, instead of a "money goes into selected accounts" and 
>> "money
>> goes out of selected accounts" statement, I would like a statement 
>> that's in
>> line with GAAP.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> David
>>
>>
> What EXACTLY are you asking for, David? Are you asking .........
> 1) Are there reports that gnucash could produce for me that provided 
> my chart of accounts were properly set up I could take the data from 
> these reports and with that data create the "statement of cash flow" 
> as you have just described? The answer to that is yes.
> 2) Does gnucash have some  function where I can just press a button 
> and this particular financial report will be produced as the output? 
> The answer to that is no.
>
> Look, when I first took up with gnucash I asked the lawyer/accountant 
> type on our board who would help me prepare the annual report "should 
> I write custom code to generate the standard report for this according 
> to GAAP as it applies to non-profits?" (and understand I made my 
> living designing/writing software for financial systems). He said 
> "Don't bother Mike. Any accountant would prefer to just take the data 
> s output by gnucash and using a favorite editor combine that data into 
> the finished product. After all, the full power of an general purpose 
> editor is going to be needed ANYWAY by the time we stick in text 
> describing the accounting principles used, defining what we consider 
> fixed assets, what depreciation process will be used, etc. and then 
> think about all the places will be sticking in annotations and the 
> text of the footnote explaining them.
>
> Think of ALL of the possible different financial reports that might be 
> required of any form of entity in any jurisdiction on the planet. We 
> need gnucash to be able to produce the data necessary to be able for 
> us to create whatever (finished product) report we require. Asking for 
> a button that automates down to the almost finished product? (you'd 
> STILL maybe want to edit for fonts and other typographic 
> considerations like page breaks forced to reasonable places ). That's 
> really too much to ask. Think of how MANY buttons need to be designed 
> and coded!
>
> Michael D Novack, FLMI
>
>
>
>> Specifically, I would like to get:
>>
>> Net Income
>> + Depreciation
>> + Amortization
>> + Decrease (increase) A/R
>> + Decrease (increase) Inventory
>> + Increase (decrease) A/P
>> Net Cash Flow from Operating Activities (CFO)
>>
>> - Capital Expenditures
>> - Investments
>> + Other Cash Provided (Consumed by) Investing Activities
>> Net Cash Flow from Investing Activities (CFI)
>>
>> + Increase (decrease) in Long Term Debt
>> + Increase (decrease) in Short Term Debt
>> Net Cash Flow from Financing Activities (CFF)
>>
>> Net Change in Cash
>>
>> Cash, Beginning of Period
>> Cash, End of Period
>>
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