Cash Flow Report Problem

[Robert Locke]

On Fri, 2014-02-28 at 09:12 -0500, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> >What it did force me to do is to look around some more. I have been
> >using gnuCash for a very long time for some small non-profit groups that
> >I am treasurer of since it works well across multiple platforms (I'm a
> >Linux guy, but most of the other volunteers aren't). When I started
> >using gnuCash the Cash Flow report was our "fix" for a broken (or maybe
> >it was non-existent) P&L statement for those of us that do Cash-based
> >accounting rather than Accrual.
> >
> >What I have just done is take a look at the built-in P&L report in 2.6
> >and it produces the expected values for me. So, I am now methodically
> >deleting all my "saved" Cash Flow tabs and replacing them with Profit &
> >Loss tabs. So I do have a good working solution going forward.
> >  
> >
> I'm confused, Robert. I've been using gnucash to keep the books for 
> non-profits since 2006 and all of the organizations involved are keeping 
> their books on the cash basis.
> 
> Gnucash has always (at least that far back) been able to produce a 
> "Statement of Revenues" (what a non-profit calls the "Profit and Loss" 
> report). OK, there is a slight problem with the NAME gnucash gave that 
> report, "Income Statement", so perhaps if a beginner with gnucash I had 
> not taken the time to LOOK at all of the reports provided to see what 
> they did I might not have found it.

Hi Michael,

Well, I've been doing this since around 2003/4 with gnuCash, if I recall
correctly. I want to say there was an itemized transactions report that
could be used to show *both* income and expense on a single report and
trying to create some custom reports back then but Scheme defeated me.
Was it still v1.x back then I think? All my questions back then were
answered by Derek (a savior to me sticking it out and getting used to
v1.x)... It was in those 1.x days where the Cash Flow report became my
solution to showing a P&L.

Anyway, my first use of gnuCash was for my own consulting business, read
invoices/Accounts Receivable and the native Accrual nature of gnuCash
was messing with me. In other words the "income" on an invoice in the
Assets:A/R account would be counted before it was paid on the P&L report
- the basic definition of Accrual vs. Cash. So, the Cash Flow report
allowed me to generate a P&L that was cash-based for my tax reporting.

When I started doing the non-profits, I simply "copied" my activities
that I had done for the consulting business, read use the Cash Flow
report to generate the P&L. But the reality of the non-profits is that
there are no "Accrual" accounts (A/R or A/P). In other words all the
transactions are cash based. So, until this morning I had not
entertained the idea of going back to the built-in P&L because Cash Flow
was working whether I had Accrual accounts or not.

--Rob