Recording dividends paid out

[Michael Ferrara]

Although GnuCash (or any other accounting software for that matter) will
crunch numbers harder, better, stronger, and faster... it is still a
Journal.  It won't write itself :)

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Mike or Penny Novack <
stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com> wrote:

> 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
>
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