Income statement has no figures after entering opening balances

[WazzaJ]

Hi all. I am a new user of Express Accounts. I have set up my opening balances including figures for income and expenses. The balance sheet shows the correct figures including Current Year Earnings, but the Income (or P&L) statement has no figures, just "0" for everything. Any suggestions as to what is going on? Hope someone can help.

 

I thought it may be the numbering system I used but having changed that I still get nothing. Does the system not recognise opening balances when calculating the P&L?

[pyz01]

OK -- I might not be correct here - but from my understanding here it what I would do:

 

1. Enter all balance sheet accounts and verify that the balance sheet reflects all NON-operating item accounts correctly.

2. Now start entering the operating items (invoices, expenses, etc. - as of today)

3. The balance sheet should now reflect the correct balances and the operating expenses and sales should show as of today for this month.

 

My belief is that the P&L only shows the operating figures for the period being reviewed. If you are looking at the income statement report for this month - it will only show the operating items that have occurred this month - as opposed to the balance sheet report which will show an accumulated effect.

 

When looking at the income statement report, it only shows the operating items (sales and expenses) that have occurred for the period being reivew (this month).

 

The second thing to look at would be the period you are reporting on. The Balance sheet report will give a snapshot as of today. The P&L will give you the ability to look at the report over a period of time (this month, last month, last quarter, last year, etc.)

 

Hope this information is useful -- hope it helps.

[WazzaJ]

Thanks for your response PYZ01.

 

I'm looking at the Income Statement for the financial year from July 2011 to date so the figures should appear for operating income and expenses. In all other accounting systems, if there are balances in operating accounts then they show in the P&L. When a financial year is closed the balances are cleared to Equity accounts and the operating accounts are set at zero for the new year.

 

When you say "enter the operating items" I guess you mean that I have to enter the balances as at July 1 2011, then enter every transaction for the year. That's a lot of work as I have two companies to sort out.

 

I guess another way would be to enter the balances at July 2011, then a single journal entry for all the P&L items?

 

What happens at year end? Does the system run an automatic year end (similar to MYOB) or do I have to clear the accounts manually?

[pyz01]

Yes -- I think that is what I would do

 

Enter the balances as of 7/31/2011 and then one journal entry that would represent the net for the year for each of the operating accounts.

 

Make sure to setup in the options that your fiscal year end is 6/30/2012 (before you start entering the journal entries). It is in the options.

 

Lastly, I am no expert here -- but this seems the way to "get started" with your system intact and converting the numbers so that you can start using as of a point in time (like today or this month).

 

When I set mine up - I just started at the beginning of the year and started from scratch. My fiscal year was from 1/1 to 12/31.

 

Couple of things of note: My belief is that there are no "fiscal year end" procedures. I think you have to do those manually yourself. Basically it is a continous accounting journaling system. The Balance sheet is always as of the date you chose and unless you do the year end entries yourself -- it just continues. You can always back-date the journal entries to reflect the year end processing if you need to.

 

Second, at the bottom left of the screen - that little screen with the Checking account balance and A/R. A/P, income and profit is for the current month. It is a snapshot for the current month only.

 

Hope this information is helpful -- again -- I am no expert -- but this is what my experiences have soon using this program.