On 06/03/2018 15:13, jcnw wrote:
I am setting up a set of books for a small church and need to run a month
profit and loss report.
How do I enter the Net Income for the Period into the books so it shows up
in the balance sheet?
I have set up the books with Income, Expense, Asset and Liability accounts.
Do I need to set up a P&L account.
Thanks for help and consideration
John
You've had two answers presenting different philosophies.
I suggest not closing the book ever. If you want to do it as a test,
copy the file and see what happens, it just creates an entry that you
can delete later so isn't really significant unless you want to be old
school.
Now for my attempt at an answer.
Presuming your church (and this probably applies to most charitable
organisations regardless of religion and hopefully not abusing people in
the third world or obeying the idiot Trump) isn't about maximising
profits you want three basic reports.
Reports / Inc & Exp / Equity Statement
it tells you where you are and where you were before. Play with the
dates so they match what your god(s) expect :)
Reports / Assets & Liabilities / Balance Sheet [1]
you want at least two of these, one at the start of the period and one
at the end. Sometimes it is good to offer a third BS dated "today" if
things have changed significantly since the end of the period you were
asked to report on.
[1] which balance sheet you use is dependant on your audience, the
easier to understand one is just called Balance Sheet, the more
interesting one is the eguile one but it has been known to confuse folk
as it is a non-traditional BS.
Reports / Income & Expense / Income Statement
To tidy things up you want an Income Statement (or a P&L, same thing in
gnc but IS probably makes more sense for a church) use the same dates as
for the Equity Statement and the start and end balance sheets, this is
so people can see why and what changed.
In plain terms people usually want to know:
where were we then
where are we now
what happened in between
and does it all add up and match what was expected
If you are able to report honestly on those things you'll do your
community a good service.
Best wishes.
--
Wm
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