Viewing Contents of Retained Earnings Account

Retained Earnings is the account that represents the accumulated net earnings of your company. The amount in this account changes automatically as of the first day of each year. The total income less the total expenses for the prior year (net income) flows into this account. QuickBooks automatically closes all income and expense accounts and places the company's net income in the Retained Earnings account. A relatively new feature of QuickBooks (available since the 2005 version) allows you or your accountant to view the information in your Retained Earnings account by producing a QuickReport. The automatic closing entry appears on the report with the description Closing Entry.

Press Ctrl+A to open your Chart of Accounts.

Click Retained Earnings to select the account.

Click the Reports button in the Chart of Accounts window.

Select QuickReport: Retained Earnings.

Double-click any entry on the report to see the detail of that transaction.

Did You Know?

QuickBooks automatically prepares a year-end closing entry. At the end of each fiscal year, a closing entry is automatically made to your QuickBooks accounts, zeroing out all your income and expense accounts and offsetting the net income or loss to your Retained Earnings account. Double-clicking a closing entry in your Retained Earnings QuickReport gets you nowhereyou cannot view the detail of this closing entry. However, you can bring up the information by viewing a Profit + Loss statement from the year of the closing.