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

[Quinn Wood]

On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 10:28 PM Quinn Wood <qskwood at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 5:11 PM David Cousens <davidcousens49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Have you investigated customizing the reports for the particular
>> situation and
>> renaming the report sections to meet your needs. The Edit->Report Options
>> alows
>> selecting particular accounts, date ranges etc but modifying the report
>> code
>> (Scheme) allows you to customize them to whatever you want with regard to
>> heading names etc. Requires an invetment to learn to program in Scheme
>> though.
>>
>
> I was planning to start from the current Equity Report, since I think I
> see where it is calculating withdrawals and investments. I have to figure
> out what the Scheme does to see if it can use the already-present "Closing
> Entries pattern" option.
>

I've taken a look at creating this new equity report (that defines retained
earnings as a snapshot of all accumulated net income kept by the business,
when it could have been paid to owners instead) a few times but I don't
have a complete answer.

I *think* I could start creating the desired report by collecting four
things:
 * what the total equity was before the report start date
 * what the total equity was on the report end date
 * what the total revenues were between the start and end date
 * what the total expenses were between the start and end date

then populating some of the report fields
 * starting equity
 * ending equity
 * change in equity
 * net gain or loss

I see some comments here and there about a form of metadata that hints at a
journal entry being a closing entry. Is this metadata something that can be
used in reports? My reading suggests it can't, but I don't have much to go
on.