new year

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/10/2015 5:13 PM, Katie Eldridge wrote:
>
> Wm,
> I'm fairly sure I can't get the numbers I need without closing the 
> books...  It's not for reporting purposes - I can do all the balance 
> sheets, income&expenditure and equity statements no problem using the 
> reports, as you can change the accounting period for that.  Its 
> keeping track for dividends purposes...  The dividends come out of 
> profit after making allowances for tax liabilities.  The previous 
> year's profit has had tax taken out already, so that is an amount that 
> can be used as dividends when current assets allow, whereas the 
> current year's profits I need to ensure that the dividend amount makes 
> allowance for the tax liability on those profits.  Also, I needed to 
> close out the income/expense amounts into an equity account in order 
> to take the corporation tax liability out of it, as it's not an 
> 'expense'.
> Does that make sense, or am I completely misunderstanding?
> Katie 


Makes perfect sense to me, Katie. But let me ask a question. Do you know 
how you would  be doing those transactions (needed for corporate 
accounting) were you keeping the books the old fashioned way, pen and 
ink on paper? What I am saying here is that I think your problem is less 
with gnucash than the fundamentals of "accounting for a corporation".

In other words, you have a lot more steps to do than a simple "close the 
books" and may not be able to use the built in facility. But all that 
means is that you construct the transactions you need. Refer to your 
"accounting 101" text for what those should be (for a corporation).

Michael