Company Cash vs Retained Earnings

[herrgoda]

From my understanding (and I am likely wrong) retained earnings are what you earned but have not spent. This (I might be wrong again) would then be the cash you have on hand.
Looking at my finances it shows 335m retained earnings, while my company cash is 42m. A week or so ago those figures were the same...
Could someone please brighten me what the difference is?

[yourefired]

There might be mistakes in the double entry accounting. See if your credits match your debits. If not, then the double entry accounting's been screwed up.

EDIT: my debits don't match my credits either. Will someone look into this?

Credits=€13,592,952,490
Debits=€13,687,475,600
Discrepancy=€94,523,110
Retained earnings=€104,257,650
Cash on hand=-€184,296,608
Discrepancy=€288,554,258

Have this kind of accounting discrepancy in a real company and the shareholders will have you crucified. [/i]

[herrgoda]

Strange...
Adding all revenues and subtracting all costs of the Total Cashflow Summary evens in a minus of almost 141m.
So it's company cash of 42m, stated retained earnings of 335m and self-calculated retained earnings of -141m.
Now I'm all screwed up...

[yourefired]

I presume your debits don't match your credits? That is to say, the sum of your left hand column entries don't equal the sum of your right hand column entries? If they don't match, you're either missing money, or you've embezzled money.

By the way the double entry system needs to be fixed. I noticed that when you put in a broker request, and then rescind it, it's debited out of your cash flow logs but it's not credited back to you (the downpayment is credited back to your cash on hand). This could partially explain the discrepancy.[/b]

[Air Elbonia]

the last cashflow (or maybe it's the one prior) was never recorded in the cashflow logs.  the cash was updated properly at the time however. Seemingly, if it's about a 290m difference for you, you've got some high gate rental fees and maintenance costs that disappeared from that page's view.

Debits not equalling credits is because that page isn't true double-entry acct. the page doesn't show in record format cash account affects to offer the second transaction on many of these.  typically it's debit cash credit rev; or debit exp credit cash. and what-have-you.

[herrgoda]

So it's basically: My company cash is right and the financial statement is wrong plus faulty?

[yourefired]

Pretty much....I was going to write up a blurb on US GAAP standards (double entry, conservancy, etc) but the project got pushed back due to some things that came up in real life (school, exams and the like). There were talks of making the finance page GAAP compliant (i.e. a real double entry system) but I think it's on the back burner for now.

If you wanted to do real double entry accounting, you'll want to do your own spreadsheets. They should be fairly easy to set up: have one spreadsheet like the one in AM, and then have a log for each article with one column being credits and debits. And then link the credit and debit sums to the summary worksheet. I'll try to put one together.

[herrgoda]

lol, I'd rather not. It's a game, after all, and I have more than enough trouble with my real-life accounting.

[yourefired]

I already put one together while taking a study break. Took all but 20 minutes....the real test comes when I start actually putting in entries.

[yourefired]

I carefully combed through the thing looking accounting discrepancies and I'm at a complete loss. My credits (in) are still 1.6 million less than debits (out).

I can't believe I was OCD enough to go through 100's of accounting entries....I know the suspect is the brokerage system accounting...(the fact that a credit doesn't show up when you rescind a brokerage request).

I give up.

[herrgoda]

Brokerage would not explain my mismatching as I haven't done anything in that field in the past 2 weeks

[AytchMan]

I noticed in W5 that, for one month, nobody paid any maintenance fees.  My monthly profit went from about 600M to 900M.  Besides being a major error, maybe this factors into the mismatch.

[StephenM]

The costs went through, they were just never recorded.

[Air Elbonia]

I noticed in W5 that, for one month, nobody paid any maintenance fees.  My monthly profit went from about 600M to 900M.  Besides being a major error, maybe this factors into the mismatch.

that is the primary cause of the mismatch. yes. those costs never being recorded (though being charged) should make up most all of the missing money.