Question on LLC member distributions w/o closing books

[Matt Kowske]

Well thank you for the explanations. I just need to decide now which
approach to take.

On 02/23/2015 10:35 AM, Buddha Buck wrote:
>
>
> On Mon Feb 23 2015 at 11:29:20 AM Matt Kowske <jmk at cmail.nu
> <mailto:jmk at cmail.nu>> wrote:
>
>     Ok, so the difference then (assuming regular distributions ARE
>     made), is
>     that with closing the books and managing the Retained Earnings account
>     is that "Retained Earnings" would truly represent the amount of
>     earnings
>     retained. The distributions are NOT retained, they are distributed and
>     this is reflected accurately.
>
>
> Yes.
>  
>
>     If you go the route of never closing the books, this Retained Equity
>     line on the balance sheet will not ever reflect the distributions made
>     and so will not be what has been retained in the literal sense of
>     the word.
>
>
> Yes. 
>  
>
>     Also, if you do have your own Retained Earnings account and close the
>     books regularly -- does the Balance Sheet show both of these? The
>     one in
>     your CoA and the one that is calculated automatically? Seems like that
>     could be a problem.
>
>
> I haven't tried, but I would suspect that if the books are just
> closed, so the synthetic Retained Earnings is zero, then it might not
> show it, especially if you have the "don't show zero-balance accounts"
> report option set.