Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Wm via gnucash-user]

On 07/03/2018 23:14, Stan Brown wrote:

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018, at 10:56 AM, John Wilson wrote:

Stan,
Thank you for your prompt help.
Attached is my first P statement which shows an income of $1,458.23
but when I run a trial balance it does not appear in Earnings, which
Equity:Earnings account that I set up.


Correct. The Trial Balance shows every account, so they will always be balanced 
and therefore everything on there is a real account.

I was talking about the Balance Sheet. the Balance Sheet shows all asset, 
liability, and equity accounts, but it does not show revenue and expense 
accounts. Instead, it shows the aggregate of all revenues minus all expenses 
(which of course is net income) as an equity item, and calls it Retained 
Earnings. This is not an account (even if you have an account by that name), 
just a line item on the Balance Sheet that aggregates all accounts in the 
income and expense categories.



Have you looked at the eguile BS ? :)

It sounds to me like you are saying stuff without knowing much about 
gnc, Stan Brown.


[snip]



I would welcome your opinion


You just picked a report different from the one I was talking about. It's not 
hard to do -- there are many reports and many have similar names.


said the man that didn't spot what the eguile balance sheet shows.

--
Wm

___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Wm via gnucash-user]

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 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, 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

___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Stan Brown]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018, at 10:56 AM, John Wilson wrote:
> Stan,
> Thank you for your prompt help.
> Attached is my first P statement which shows an income of $1,458.23 
> but when I run a trial balance it does not appear in Earnings, which 
> Equity:Earnings account that I set up.

Correct. The Trial Balance shows every account, so they will always be balanced 
and therefore everything on there is a real account.

I was talking about the Balance Sheet. the Balance Sheet shows all asset, 
liability, and equity accounts, but it does not show revenue and expense 
accounts. Instead, it shows the aggregate of all revenues minus all expenses 
(which of course is net income) as an equity item, and calls it Retained 
Earnings. This is not an account (even if you have an account by that name), 
just a line item on the Balance Sheet that aggregates all accounts in the 
income and expense categories.

> Do I have to actually close my accounts monthly to get the Earnings to 
> appear?

No.

> Or have I set up the accounts wrongly?

Also No, at last at first glance.

> I found this on-line: 
> http://www.austintek.com/gnucash/ncsa-gnucash-talk-4.html#ss4.7 where 
> the owners capital is set up as a liability.
> Should I have set up the opening balances not as an equity account but 
> as a liability account for GnuCash to work.

In heaven's name, no. :-)

> I would welcome your opinion

You just picked a report different from the one I was talking about. It's not 
hard to do -- there are many reports and many have similar names.

> Regards,
> John
> 
> Dr. John Wilson & Dr. Diane Martin,
> 3770 San Mateo Drive
> Port Alberni, B.C., V9Y 5H4
> Phone: 250-723-3752

-- 
Stan Brown
the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm
http://BrownMath.com
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 3/6/2018 10:13 AM, 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 account.
Thanks for help and consideration
John

Ah, somebody who learned in the old days.

No, you don't have to set up a P account, close the income and expense 
accounts to it, and close it to main equity.


Just run the "Income Statement" (aka "Profit and Loss Report" aka 
"Statement of Revenues and Expenses" -- which is what a non-profit would 
call it) for the time interval and "Balance Sheet" reports for the 
beginning and end (next period just the end as you will have the before 
from last time).


You CAN "close the books" but you don't have to.

Michael D Novack
___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Adrien Monteleone]

You don’t enter Net Income directly.

You enter all of the revenue transactions and all of the expense transactions.

Gnucash does the math when you run the P (Income Statement) Report.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Mar 6, 2018, at 9:13 AM, 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 account.
> Thanks for help and consideration
> John
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html
> ___
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user@gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
> -
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Mar 6, 2018, at 11:11 AM, Stan Brown  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Mar 6, 2018, at 10:13 AM, 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 account.
>> Thanks for help and consideration
>> John
> 
> 
> Closing the books will do that.
> 
> But you may not want to close the books monthly. Instead you may want to run 
> an income statement for each month, and not close the books till the end of 
> the year. 
> 
> The tutorial concepts guide has more about this. It caused me to change my 
> accounting period from a month to a year, and specify start and end dates for 
> each month's income statement.
> 
> When you run a balance sheet as of a particular date, the total of income 
> minus expenses is automatically placed on the balance sheet, in a category 
> called retained earnings, so you don't have to do anything to compute it. 
> 
> However, the Retained Earnings in the balance sheet does not pay attention to 
> the accounting period. Say your accounting period is monthly and you close 
> the books at the end of the year (as I do). When you run a balance sheet as 
> of 31 January, the Retained Earnings figure shown is of course the net income 
> for January. But when you run a balance sheet as of 28 February, Retained 
> earnings is the total of the two months January and February, in a single 
> number. In other words, Retained Earnings is always the total of income minus 
> expenses since the last time you closed the books.

Which brings up a use case for never running ‘close book.’

If you never close, it doesn’t matter what date the Balance Sheet is run for, 
it will always present the proper Retained Earnings calculation as of that date.

Regards,
Adrien

>  
> 
> By contrast, the income statement does respect the dates you set on Edit » 
> Report Options.  (I think that's the right menu option; I don't have the 
> software on this computer.)
> 
> -- 
> Stan Brown
> the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm
> http://BrownMath.com
> http://OakRoadSystems.com/
> 
> ___
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user@gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
> -
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Re: Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[Stan Brown]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018, at 10:13 AM, 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 account.
> Thanks for help and consideration
> John


Closing the books will do that.

But you may not want to close the books monthly. Instead you may want to run an 
income statement for each month, and not close the books till the end of the 
year. 

The tutorial concepts guide has more about this. It caused me to change my 
accounting period from a month to a year, and specify start and end dates for 
each month's income statement.

When you run a balance sheet as of a particular date, the total of income minus 
expenses is automatically placed on the balance sheet, in a category called 
retained earnings, so you don't have to do anything to compute it. 

However, the Retained Earnings in the balance sheet does not pay attention to 
the accounting period. Say your accounting period is monthly and you close the 
books at the end of the year (as I do). When you run a balance sheet as of 31 
January, the Retained Earnings figure shown is of course the net income for 
January. But when you run a balance sheet as of 28 February, Retained earnings 
is the total of the two months January and February, in a single number. In 
other words, Retained Earnings is always the total of income minus expenses 
since the last time you closed the books.  

By contrast, the income statement does respect the dates you set on Edit » 
Report Options.  (I think that's the right menu option; I don't have the 
software on this computer.)

-- 
Stan Brown
the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm
http://BrownMath.com
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

Integrating Profit and Loss Report into a set of books and the trial balance

[jcnw]

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 account.
Thanks for help and consideration
John



--
Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html
___
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.