Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Stan Brown]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018, at 10:56 AM, John Wilson wrote:
> Stan,
> Thank you for your prompt help.
> Attached is my first P&L statement which shows an income of $1,458.23 
> but when I run a trial balance it does not appear in Earnings, which 
> Equity:Earnings account that I set up.

Correct. The Trial Balance shows every account, so they will always be balanced and therefore everything on there is a real account.

I was talking about the Balance Sheet. the Balance Sheet shows all asset, liability, and equity accounts, but it does not show revenue and expense accounts. Instead, it shows the aggregate of all revenues minus all expenses (which of course is net income) as an equity item, and calls it Retained Earnings. This is not an account (even if you have an account by that name), just a line item on the Balance Sheet that aggregates all accounts in the income and expense categories.

> Do I have to actually close my accounts monthly to get the Earnings to 
> appear?

No.

> Or have I set up the accounts wrongly?

Also No, at last at first glance.

> I found this on-line: 
> http://www.austintek.com/gnucash/ncsa-gnucash-talk-4.html#ss4.7 where 
> the owners capital is set up as a liability.
> Should I have set up the opening balances not as an equity account but 
> as a liability account for GnuCash to work.

In heaven's name, no. :-)

> I would welcome your opinion

You just picked a report different from the one I was talking about. It's not hard to do -- there are many reports and many have similar names.

> Regards,
> John
> 
> Dr. John Wilson & Dr. Diane Martin,
> 3770 San Mateo Drive
> Port Alberni, B.C., V9Y 5H4
> Phone: 250-723-3752

-- 
Stan Brown
the_stan_brown at fastmail.fm
http://BrownMath.com
http://OakRoadSystems.com/