Quinn, GnuCash is used in many jurisdictions/countries and the accounting treatment of specific situations depends very strongly on the particular legislation, particularly business law, taxation law, contract law and general law applying in a given jurisdiction. These are not necessarily and in most cases unlikely to be the same in detail nad the detail matters.
The people responding can be in any one of a wide number of jurisdiction (US, UK, Belgium, France, Netherlands and any other EU country, Australia , NZ, Brazil,..., etc etc.). Any specific accounting structures and methodology described will be very generic and should never be considered as anything other than illustrative of broad general accounting principles and applying GnuCash to them. Most of us, even those of us with accounting qualifcations and experience in a given jurisdiction, try to make this very clear in answers we give and AFAIK it is detailed in the mailing list description/documentation. David Cousens On Wed, 2024-01-03 at 12:19 -0600, Quinn Wood wrote: > On Wed, Jan 3, 2024, 09:13 Michael or Penny Novack < > stepbystepf...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > Although I am NOT "qualified" to give advice I will give one example > > related to the above to show not free to do just any old thing. If keeping > > books for a corporation, as soon as the Directors declare a dividend, it > > becomes a liability. > > > > BTW, I disagree things like "how to keep books for a corporation" belongs > > in a gnucash wiki. We are NOT "qualified" to be giving this sort of > > accounting advice. And in any case, these things can vary somewhat by > > jurisdiction. > > > You already give advice on how to keep books on the wiki. There is an > entire page telling people you don't need to close your books in GnuCash > that proceeds to give people workarounds for how to do some of the things > closing your books accomplishes. Adding this workflow isn't accounting > advice, and frankly people are way beyond that. Even if this was accounting > advice, at least it would be correct under GAAP and IFRS unlike the > explicit advice that retained earnings are the same as net income or the > implied advice that retained earnings belong on a sole proprietor's or > partnership's balance sheet. > > I have no idea what your first quoted remark is in regards to. Yes, a > dividend payable increases liabilities. An already-paid dividend does not. > It reduces the previously -increased liability and reduces retained > earnings (that thing people here claim is the same as net income.) Nothing > I mentioned conflicts with that workflow in GnuCash or outside of GnuCash. > I know of no jurisdictions that say the two facts are non-facts. These are > 101 concepts used globally. > > On the flip side, the workflow people keep recommending on the wiki and > mailing list does conflict. You have to keep a paid dividend on your books > as a payable liability forever, put it on your books as an expense (to > fraudulently reduce equity and reducing net income), or just never declare > one. Do that and see how quick taxing authorities, lenders, or investors > call foul. > > > > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > 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 ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
