Income Statement columns

Mike or Penny Novack mpnovack at mtdata.com
Sun Jul 31 18:11:32 EDT 2016


On 7/31/2016 10:36 AM, Gary Holtum wrote:
> In the expense section of the income statement, accounts that have
> subaccounts are itemized in the left column and the parent acct is zero.
> Accounts without subaccounts are in the right column. Why? Seems contrary to
> standard T acct. structure. They are all expenses.
>
> Gary
>
I think you might be misinterpreting what you are seeing.

In the "Income Statement" report there is no left hand vs right hand 
column situation in terms of debit vs credit*. What you are seeing is 
the number of columns appropriate for the nesting level of your CoA (and 
the maximum nesting level you have chosen for the report to display). 
Whether you see amounts for the parent accounts before (on their line) 
or on a total line tat the report will add depends on the options you 
have chosen.

If new to using a report, you should perhaps go into Edit => Report 
Options (having first opened the report) and see what changing various 
options does to the report. For example, I am using:
1) nesting level 4 or 5 depending on the set of books (I am always 
needing more than the default 3)
2) don't show parent amount (on its line) but do show subtotals.
3) and of course, I am always setting the date range for the report as 
an Income Statement** is always for a specific accounting period. Normal 
to also have a Balance Sheet report for the start and end date.

Michael D Novack

* In other words, all are balances of expense account. If unusually one 
of these accounts has a credit balance, will show as negative amounts 
are displayed.

** Well, for me, keeping books for non-profits, Revenue Statement of 
Statement of Revenues and Expenses. How the report is to be titled is 
another of those options.



* In the expense part of the report, those are all debits.


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