[GNC] Setting start/end dates on "General Journal" and "Balance Sheet (eguile-gnc)

[Paul Kroitor]

"In accounting the delta is called a Profit and Loss report or Income 
Statement."

Well, yes and no. While this intimate relationship between Balance 
Sheets and Income Statements is Accounting 101 -- I usually use the 
"fence and fence posts" analogy to explain them to neophytes -- I 
believe the delta Stuart is discussing here is the net change of each 
account between the Balance Sheet of date A and of date B.

Obviously the totals of the two things will match, as the overall income 
less expense always equals the net change in equity on the balance 
sheet. But the Income Statement lists the incomes and expenses per 
account (eg. widgets sold, components purchased), whereas delta column 
shows the difference in the assets and liabilities (eg. bank accounts, 
inventory) between the first and second balance sheet columns.

Paul

On 2026-07-25 6:11 a.m., Wm Tarr wrote:
>
> On 2026-07-25 10:59, Stuart Longland VK4MSL via gnucash-user wrote:
>> Hi Paul,
>> On 20/7/26 13:05, Paul Kroitor wrote:
>>> Actually that’s just what the Balance Sheet (Multicolumn) does right
>>> out of the box.
>>>
>>> Just set the period and the range and it gives you the balance sheet
>>> at each point in time in columns.
>>>
>>> For example, I have one set of books (for a complex estate) where it
>>> suits me to have columns for Balance at Death, after one year, two
>>> years, and three years.
>>>
>>> But it has no option to create intermediate column showing net
>>> difference (change). For that, one must export to a spreadsheet.
>>
>> Yes, the multi-column balance sheet actually gets very close, just 
>> lacking that "delta" column.
>>
> In accounting the delta is called a Profit and Loss report or Income 
> Statement.
>
> As others have suggested your old way of doing things was ad-hoc. A 
> standard set of minimal reports is, Balance sheet at start (actually 
> end of day before start), Balance sheet at end and Income Statement to 
> explain what happened in between, the delta you refer to.