Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-19 Thread Frank H. Ellenberger
John, Am 18.04.19 um 06:06 schrieb John Ralls: > Frank and Justin, > > The wikipedia article doesn't explain it very well. Here's a better one: > https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/070615/what-difference-between-earnings-and-income.asp. > "Net Income" is for this period, "Retained

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-18 Thread John Ralls
Justin, It's very simple: I've many years of experience with both accounting and GnuCash. I've run a company which paid dividends and used GnuCash to account for it. It works fine the way it is, it just doesn't work the way you want to use it. Too bad. Then there's your admission to Maf: > >

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-18 Thread Justin Mathew via gnucash-devel
Just to add to it, > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retained_earnings: The retained earnings > of a corporation is the accumulated net income of the corporation that > is retained by the corporation at a particular point of time, such as at > the end of the reporting period. ... > >

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-18 Thread Justin Mathew via gnucash-devel
You mean here https://bugs.gnucash.org/ ? - Regards, Justin Mathew mjus...@protonmail.com Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email. ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Tuesday, April 16, 2019 7:52 PM, Christopher Lam wrote: > Oops. My mistake: The "Retained Earnings" part *in GnuCash's*

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-18 Thread Justin Mathew via gnucash-devel
Christopher, > The "Retained Earnings" part of the Balance Sheet has nothing to do with > dividends. > > IIUC on the balance sheet date X, the retained earnings simply means the > total income up to date X, minus total expenses up to date X. Don't get me wrong, the 'retained earnings' anywhere

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-18 Thread Justin Mathew via gnucash-devel
Maf, > you should keep replies on-list, others can contribute and maybe in the future > the thread can save a question being asked in the first place "reply All" > in your email client is a good way. Opps, I had read about it, but missed it in the heat of replying. Will keep that mind

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-17 Thread John Ralls
Frank and Justin, The wikipedia article doesn't explain it very well. Here's a better one: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/070615/what-difference-between-earnings-and-income.asp. "Net Income" is for this period, "Retained Earnings" is for the life of the entity. (Though note that under

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-17 Thread Frank H. Ellenberger
John, the issue is not about reports or accounts, but the term "retained earnings". While for the "normal" private user (and our original programmers) it may be seen as synonym for "net income", for business users it is more specific: The amount of the net income, which is for several reasons

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread John Ralls
If Justin's proposal refers to > If we bring in a Dividend type account under Equity we can debit dividend > declarations to this account. We don't have to credit this account by the > way. The account will be in minus with red font as in current version. The > balance in this account will

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread Phil Diacono
I agree with Justin. Other than "this is how it works" or "here's a workaround", I don't believe I've seen an argument challenging his proposal. Can I encourage you to consider this approach for a future release? Am I correct in thinking that the other category that drains retained earnings is

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread John Ralls
Justin, No, just you. This is real simple: GnuCash provides two ways to account for reporting retained earnings, including dividends. I'm not asking you to do anything, I'm telling you how GnuCash works. Either you use one of those two ways or you use a different accounting program. Regards,

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread John Ralls
Frank, I think that the glossary entry is only partly right. "Retained Earnings" certainly can be an account, but it's also a concept: It's the collected profits of the company over time that haven't been distributed to the owners. Earnings before stuff lines are non-GAAP values that

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread John Ralls
Justin, It's not a workaround, it's a choice. Either you close your books or you don't. If you do then you close to a Retained Earnings account and all is good. If you don't then GnuCash calculates your retained earnings for you and all is good. At present if you mix the two then you get two

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread Adrien Monteleone
My bad, I saw the thread starting in the user list, I never saw it in devel. So when I replied, I set it to user. I’ll update my filters to file into devel ahead of user and be more careful next time when setting my reply address(es). Regards, Adrien > On Apr 16, 2019, at 11:37 AM, John Ralls

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread John Ralls
Adrien, You copied the wrong list, this thread was in gnucash-devel. Regards, John Ralls > On Apr 16, 2019, at 7:47 AM, Adrien Monteleone > wrote: > > If you create an Equity:Retained Earnings account and debit it, while > crediting Dividends Payable (the formal method) does this not show

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread Frank H. Ellenberger
Hi John, Am 16.04.19 um 16:43 schrieb John Ralls: > The Retained Earnings part of the Balance Sheet report *was* written with > that in mind. Source? > The automatic calculation of retained earnings in the Balance Sheet report > nets out the income and expense accounts; if there's a Retained

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread John Ralls
The Retained Earnings part of the Balance Sheet report *was* written with that in mind. The automatic calculation of retained earnings in the Balance Sheet report nets out the income and expense accounts; if there's a Retained Earnings account it will get reported too. Since the way to credit

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread Christopher Lam
Oops. My mistake: The "Retained Earnings" part *in GnuCash's* Balance-sheet has not been written with that in mind by the original report writers. Amendments to reports are possible but please submit an enhancement in bugzilla. Ideally with an suitable chart of accounts, with some sample

Re: [GNC-dev] [GNC] Recording dividend payoffs

2019-04-16 Thread Christopher Lam
The "Retained Earnings" part of the Balance Sheet has nothing to do with dividends. IIUC on the balance sheet date X, the retained earnings simply means the total income up to date X, minus total expenses up to date X. If the books were 'closed' on date X, the income would be zeroed out to