Question

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 3/7/2017 4:53 PM, John Ralls wrote:
>> On Mar 7, 2017, at 12:22 PM, D Wt <dtjan10 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks John. I did set up two accounts in equity as capital accounts for both members, and entered each one's present equity against opening balances. But I don't think I follow you on where to go from there. The balance sheet shows a small retained loss for 2016, which needs to then be subtracted from each partners equity, since it will pass through to them. But since retained loss is not an account, I can't simply transfer those losses to each partner. Are you saying there needs to be a separate account made for retained loss, in order to zero the calculated one?
>>
>> In other words, is the retained loss line in gnucash added automatically in order to balance the books when a true retained loss account has not been created?
>>
  What John told you will of course work. IF by some chance you don't 
want to actually do a "close the books" add two accounts, one as an 
expense and one as an income with names like "net income distributed" 
and "net loss distributed" << and that IS the correct order of names -- 
"net income distributed" is an EXPENSE, etc. >>  Then run the Income 
Statement report for the period to see what that amount is. Enter a 
transaction for that amount with the other side the split between the 
partners equity. Now when you run the Income Statement again the new 
profit and loss will be zero and when you run the Balance Sheet you 
won't see a retained profit of loss << because not retained; it has been 
distributed to partners' equity >>

Michael D Novack

Michael