As for the Italian law (art 2424 Codice Civile) we should divide the reteined earnings in the BS into two distinct subtotals: one for the current accounting period (Liabilities A.9) and one for the previous amounts (Liabilities A.8)
I know that it can be achieved with a journal entry (and that’s what I am currently doing) but it would be great if @lubos could automate this, given the fact that Manager is a perpetual accounting system.
I think that one should set not the current date for BS but the date range and Manager will calculate the two distinct amounts.
More than a custom report a transformation report, once they will implemented, with a combination of BS and P&L. But I was thinking of a more current solution with an hard coded implementation.
I have worked for a number of organisations where their system did this. The terminology used in the equity section was “Accumulated earnings” and “Current year earnings”. The systems did not use the perpetual method, however, each fiscal year was closed before starting a new year, but I can’t see any reason why this could not be an option in a perpetual system.
You cannot get “current year earnings” only through the delta between two years. Or at least not always. You could have had also distributions and so on. You should get them from the P&L.
The benefit of showing current year earnings separately is that undistributed earnings can be quickly and easily determined from the balance sheet by reference to the accumulated earnings amount.
Do you use Statement of Changes in Equity ? Typically, this report shows your retained earnings for the period.
The reason why balance sheet doesn’t show retained earnings for the current accounting period is because balance sheet is always As At… not for the period. It would never be clear what period that account is for. Is it for quaterly period? Half-year? Annual?
That’s why there is Statement of Changes in Equity report which explains movements in Retained Earnings (besides other things).