You have been using the account registers a lot. You are familiar with different ways to view account registers as well as how to sort and filter the transactions. Once you have got just the precise list of transactions in an account register, you may want to see a report of those transactions and print them.
- Viewing a report: From the Accounts Tree window, double-click Checking Accounts to open its account register.
- From the View | Filter By menu launch the filter dialog. In the Date tab, choose Select Range and enter a Start and an End date.
- From the menu select Reports | Account Report. A report of just the transactions in that account register will open in a new tab marked Register as shown in the following screenshot:
- Viewing a chart: From the menu select Reports | Income & Expense | Income & Expense Chart to view the following chart:
GnuCash has a ton of built-in reports and charts that will meet the needs of most businesses readily. It is not required that you become familiar with all of these. The trick is to be aware of what is available as well as to know where to go and look when you need a specific report or chart.
Tip
Reports specific to the account register
Whenever you are in an account register, you will notice that you have two extra menu items under the Reports menu, below a separator line, named Account Report and Account Transaction Report. The Account Report lets you view and print the account register that is currently open. The Account Transaction Report lets you view and print a single transaction in the account register that is currently open. When you move to another window, such as the Accounts Tree window or a report, you won't see these because these two reports are specific to the currently open account register.
Other than the two reports that are specific to the account register, GnuCash has several other reports and charts that are available from any screen. The Profit & Loss Report, also known as the Income Statement, as well as the Balance Sheet, are the two most popular financial terms that you will hear from accountants, bankers and investors.
The Income Statement summarizes your business income and expenses during a specific period of time. It is also known as the Profit and Loss Statement or simply P&L. The difference between income and expenses for a period is your profit or loss. To generate the report, from the menu select Reports | Income & Expense | Profit & Loss. Alternatively, you can select Income Statement. After opening the report, you can open the Report Options dialog by clicking on the Options toolbar button or from the menu Edit | Report Options. You can set the Start Date, End Date, and several other report options here.
The Balance Sheet is simply a snapshot of the financial condition of your business. The Balance Sheet summarizes your assets, liabilities, and net worth as it is at a particular point in time.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a chart is worth a thousand numbers. Charts help you to quickly and easily recognize patterns in the data. Scanning data in tables takes more time and you may overlook important data buried in tables.
GnuCash provides you with a bunch of charts on expenses, income, assets, and liabilities.
Like we said, the financial statements such as the P&L and the Balance Sheet are of interest to accountants, bankers, and investors. However, you get to meet them only once in a while. In the meantime, you have a business to run and decisions to make on a day-to-day basis. You know that making those decisions requires reports based on operations data.
Here is a list of other reports available in GnuCash along with a brief description of the reports. We will be covering Custom Reports and reports under the Sample & Custom menu later in this chapter. The reports listed under the menu Reports | Business will be covered in a subsequent chapter. The tax reports will be covered in the chapter on taxes. The Budget Reports will be covered in the chapter on budgets. The reports that are specific to personal accounts are out of the scope of this book.
|
Report name |
Report description |
|---|---|
|
Account Report |
As you saw in the preceding example, the Account Report lets you view and print an account register. If you want to change the date range or the set of transactions printed in the report, then you need to go back to the account register, make adjustments to it, and then re-run this report. |
|
Account Transaction Report |
The Account Transaction Report lets you view and print a single transaction. |
|
Account Summary Report |
The Account Summary Report provides a listing of accounts and balances as it is on a particular date. |
|
Transaction Report |
Lists transactions from all the accounts that occur within a date range. The transactions are grouped by accounts. This report is the same as the General Ledger Report. |
Assets & Liabilities Reports:
|
Report name |
Report description |
|---|---|
|
Asset Barchart |
Shows a stacked bar chart summarizing the value of your assets over a period of time. Current assets, such as cash and bank, as well as fixed assets, such as building and equipment, will be shown. |
|
Asset Piechart |
Shows a pie chart summarizing the value and allocation of your assets as on a given date, such as the end of the financial year. |
|
Balance Sheet using eguile-gnc |
This report is under development. Not for business use. |
|
General Journal |
Simply shows a date-wise list of all transactions. |
|
General Ledger |
Lists transactions from all the accounts that occur within a date range. This report is the same as the Transaction Report. |
|
Liability Barchart |
Shows a stacked bar chart summarizing the value of your liabilities, such as loans and accounts payable, over a period of time. |
|
Liability Piechart |
Shows a pie chart summarizing the value of your liabilities as on a given date, such as the end of the financial year. |
|
Net Worth Barchart |
This report shows a bar chart summarizing your assets, liabilities and net worth every month over the financial year. Net worth is the difference between your assets and liabilities. |
Tip
General Journal Report
If you get an error while opening the General Journal report, try closing all the account registers first and then opening the report.
Income & Expense Reports:
|
Report name |
Report description |
|---|---|
|
Cash Flow |
Shows all the cash inflow into the selected set of accounts as well as the entire cash outflow over a given period. It also shows the difference between the two. |
|
Equity Statement |
Shows the initial investment or the opening balance equity for the financial year, any new investments that came in, as well as any owner's draw. This will also show any net earnings that will go towards boosting this equity or any net loss that will erode the equity. |
|
Expense Barchart |
A stacked bar chart of different expenses by month through the financial year. |
|
Expense Piechart |
A pie chart showing a breakdown of different expenses during the financial year. |
|
Expenses vs. Day of Week |
A pie chart showing expenses by day of the week. Very useful for day-of-the-week sensitive businesses such as restaurants. |
|
Income & Expense Chart |
A bar chart showing income and expenses by month through the financial year. We covered this in the tutorial above. |
|
Income Barchart |
A stacked bar chart of different types of income by month through the financial year. |
|
Income Piechart |
A pie chart showing a breakdown of different types of income during the financial year. |
|
Income vs. Day of Week |
A pie chart showing income by day of the week. Very useful for day-of-the-week sensitive businesses such as restaurants. |
|
Trial Balance |
This simply shows the balance in every account as on a given date. |
Tip
Reports that your accountant may ask for
The Trial Balance and the General Ledger will be of interest to your accountants. Accountants view the Trial Balance as the index page and the General Ledger as a drill-down list of individual transactions that make up each account on the Trial Balance. So, it is good to be familiar with these so that if they ask for it you will know what they are and how to get them.
All these reports can be broadly grouped into the following:
- Reports that are of interest to your investors and bankers: The Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss Statement (also known as the Income Statement) belong here. Also, the Asset, Liability, and Net Worth charts belong here. Of course, your accountant will help finalize these and so these will be of interest to your accountant too. You will be interested in these too, when you are wearing your investor's hat.
- Reports that are of interest to your accountant or tax consultant: The Trial Balance and the General Ledger are the starting point for your accountant or tax consultant. To drill down further they may ask for Transaction Reports, Account Reports, and Account Summaries.
- Reports that are of interest to you to control the operations of the business: The income, expense, cash flow reports, and charts will be of interest to you when you are wearing the Chief Operating Officer (COO) hat, which is probably only for about 75 hours per week.
As you can see, GnuCash has far more reports than any one business will ever use. You will have to pick and choose which one you want based on the problem you are trying to solve. If, for example, you find the need for keeping a tighter control on your expenses, then you can try out the Expense Barchart, Expense Piechart, Expenses vs. Day of week, and Income & Expense Chart, and determine which one is closest to what you need. You can either use that report as it is or customize it further, as you will soon see in the next section.
- Which are the two reports that are only available when an account register is open?
a. Balance Sheet and Trial Balance
b. Account Report and Account Transaction Report
c. Income Statement and Profit & Loss
d. Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss