Recording dividends paid out

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/23/2015 7:48 AM, Ron Stone wrote:
> Thanks John and Alice,
>
> This proved remarkably easy to do, once I knew which buttons to push, and as a bonus, closing the books demystified some accounting concepts and terminology.
>
> I noticed that the online help states that book closing is really unnecessary in GnuCash, and can confuse some reports. If I chose not to, I would have no pool of retained earnings against which to record dividends. In such a case, is there an alternative approach to drawing on equity to pay them out?
>
When people give advice (like don't need to close books) they mean for 
the majority of us. That doesn't mean that those of us keeping books for 
a "for profit, stock corporation" might not have to. But things like 
that aren't really gnucash issues but requirements of doing certain 
things to keep track of allowable dividends, etc.

I've said this before but I guess bears repeating. Knowing (or having us 
tell you how to do something using gnucash) isn't enough. You still have 
to know WHAT you need to be doing in the accounting sense, the part of 
it that doesn't matter if you are keeping your books the old fashioned 
way pen and ink on paper or with a computerized accounting package like 
gnucash.

If you are trying to keep the books of a business without professional 
help you need to study the basics:
Partnerships: (limited or not)    Accounting for the small partnership
Corporations:  (stock or not)     Accounting for corporations

Michael D Novack