What happens to expenses/drawings if I choose not to close books?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/15/2016 10:58 AM, EasyGoingPat wrote:
> Hi,
>
> (The following refers to a Sole Trader, not Limited company.)
>
> I have just been reading the help for the GnuCash Close Book tool.  It
> states that it is unnecessary to close the books at the end of a financial
> period, and indeed seems to recommend *not* doing so.
>
> But, since the Expenses-Drawings account is just another expense account and
> does not appear to be special in any way, how does cash taken out of the
> business affect Owner's Equity, which I believe it should do?
>
> As always, my thanks to anyone taking the time to help.
>
> Kind wishes ~ Patrick
>
Just because you aren't closing ALL the income and expense accounts to 
equity doesn't mean that you can't manually do any "special" income or 
expense accounts << that don't really belong on the Income/Expense 
Statement >>

If you ARE choosing to put transactions for "owner drawings" under 
expenses << perhaps you want a sense of what the expense might be if 
that was an employee/non partner >> you could enter a transaction after 
the P&L report to close THAT particular expense to equity (the owner 
draw account there.

Michael D Novack

PS: The advice NOT to do a formal "close the books" is simply what a lot 
of users prefer. Closing the books was the traditional method, no harm 
in doing it.