[GNC] When closing books, equity statement report is incorrect

[Michael or Penny Novack]

Sorry, but this isn't really a gnucash question.

By which I mean if you knew how to do this (by the standards of your 
jurisdiction) were the books being kept the old fashioned way, pen and 
ink on paper, you would have little difficulty doing it with the books 
being kept using gnucash. The "retained earnings" (or "losses" shown by 
gnucash in the Balance sheet are for a VIRTUAL account representing the 
UNCLOSED income and expense accounts.

It looks like you would be wanting to use explicit accounts (in equity) 
which you can do by closing the books the old fashioned way (ignore the 
gnucash "close the books" tool). Essentially your question is just about 
accounting workflow, but this point (that you probably want to do these 
quarterly "close the books" operations not using the tool.

Michael D Novack




On 10/21/2023 10:44 PM, Quinn Wood wrote:
> How do I close my books at the end of a period and have the Equity
> Statement Report correctly show capital investments and withdrawals without
> classifying retained earnings as either? Retained earnings are neither.
>
> I've every combination of workflows I can think of.
> * closing Q3 books into a separate top-level Income Summary account then
> transferring (in Q4) retained earnings and any declared dividends into
> Retained Earnings (an equity account) and Dividends Payable (a liability
> account)
> * closing Q3 books directly into Retained Earnings and later (in Q4)
> transferring declared dividends into Dividends Payable
> * using closing and dividend transaction descriptions that match the
> closing entries pattern in the Equity Statement report, that do not, or any
> combination of the two
> * including and excluding the Income Summary and/or Retained Earnings
> accounts in the Equity Statement report
> * closing Q4 books the same way as I closed Q3
>
> My Q4 report is either full of incorrectly-interpreted numbers it's pulling
> from the Q4 closing entries (if I don't exclude them) or it's just missing
> data (if I exclude a transaction that includes transfers to retained
> earnings or dividends payable.)
>
> I can't find a way to do this that works. What is this workflow supposed to
> look like?
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.


-- 
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.