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

[Adrien Monteleone]

First, your use case might be out of scope for GnuCash.

But you might be able to accomplish #3 with a Transaction Report.

Since you want a delta though, you will likely have to run two such 
reports with different ending dates (either independently or using the 
Multi-Column report) and then export to a spreadsheet to get your 
variance column.

Another option would be to use the Balance Sheet (multi-column) report. 
Set your period to One Year, set the beginning date as Last Quarter, 
closing date as Current Quarter and select only the relevant Accounts.

Then export to a spreadsheet for adding your variance column.

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There is no virtual retained earnings account. (according to my 
understanding)

If you proceed as normal, and do not close the books, GnuCash calculates 
what this account balance would be and shows it on the Balance Sheet 
report. (perhaps others)

If you close the books, you get a real Retained Earnings account.
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I don't think you *need* to close books to achieve any of your three 
objectives.


Regards,
Adrien

On 10/22/23 12:36 PM, Quinn Wood wrote:
> I need to do three things after a given financial reporting period:
> * produce a report that communicates revenues and expenses over the period
> * produce a report that communicates the final balances at the end of the
> period
> * produce a report that communicates any changes in shareholder equity that
> occurred over the period
> 
> It looks like I can accomplish the first two things with the built-in
> Income Statement and Balance Sheet reports without doing any kind of
> closing process (built-in or manual) so that works fine. For the third
> objective, I believe the Equity Statement report will pick up on net income
> (or loss) as well as capital investments even if I refrain from closing the
> books, so that works fine too. To finish up the third objective, how would
> I enter a dividend into the GnuCash so it shows up on the report? If I was
> using an explicit account, I would probably choose to debit Retained
> Earnings equity account and credit a Dividends Payable liability account to
> declare a dividend. In this case where I'm sticking with the virtual
> Retained Earnings (or Losses) account, I believe I won't be able to do that.
> 
> Thanks for the explanation about the virtual accounts, good stuff to know.
> Let me know if I'm missing something with this last bit.