Members Equity

Open the Chart of Accounts and double-click it.

If it open as a report, then you are looking at the "retained earnings" which is a "roll up account."

On the last date of the fiscal year, the balance sheet and the P&L show your Net Income. On the first date of the new fiscal year, this value becomes Retained Earnings, which is Equity.

When you first create a file through the interview, the Equity accounts are set up according to the tax payer entity type you select, such as LLC.

Then, the Equity accounts can be further customized or modified by the user.

So, the one equity account that does not open as a Register is Retained Earnings, no matter what it is named.

Any other accounts are provided as a way to manage Equity. For instance, if this is a two-member LLC, you might want to track each member's equity. Then, for each year end, you allocate Retained Earnings via the same split as the partnership, such as 50/50 or 40/60.

I am pointing out that in some QB files, there is no equity account named "Retained Earnings" but the only equity account that won't open as a register is the one QB uses to close the year, so that makes it the Retained Earnings account in function, even if it is named Owner Equity or Member Equity.

I am describing that there might be more than one Equity account set up and used in a file, as a way to track equity for different reasons.

I tried to point out that there might be a member equity account as a way to specifically track the allocated Retained Earnings for one or more members.

"If so why are both listed on the balance sheet with different amounts?"

Because in this file, the Retained Earnings is not closed (zeroed out) to member equity.

Sometimes you will see this structure:

Owner Equity

Owner Contribution positive values

Owner Draw negative values (this would be zeroed after each year end)

Retained Earning (this would be zeroed after each year end)

And that is a way to have visiblity of the various equity activities.

Every file can be different. We can't see your file.