Can I ask how this was resolved? Because share capital can never become retained earnings. I don't know who at Odoo approved this change - complete beginner error??? 

Now we all need to manually change the system? Doesn't make sense either but I need to do it for our customers. Happy for any solution on this. 

Hi,

In Odoo, the Balance Sheet is structured using account tags rather than just account codes. The UK chart of accounts that ships with Odoo follows UK GAAP conventions, so you won’t find a “Common Stock” account like in US accounting. Instead, equity is represented through accounts such as “Called Up Share Capital,” “Share Premium Account,” and “Other Reserves.”

When you created your own account with code 310005, Odoo placed it under Retained Earnings because it wasn’t linked to the proper equity tag. This happens since Odoo uses those tags to decide where accounts appear on the Balance Sheet report.

In the UK CoA, equity accounts usually fall in the 300000–399999 range. To align with UK standards, you should either use existing accounts like “Called Up Share Capital” or assign the correct tags to your custom account. This ensures it shows up under the right Equity section instead of Retained Earnings.

Hope it helps

1. The screenshot from Chris Tringham shows a structure of the calculation, where can I access that structure?  (I am presuming there is some way to edit it once I know where to look at that)
2. What will be needed achieve the layout I expect showing common stock as its own line under Equity, as per the cheat sheet (and what I would expect on a set of accounts anywhere)?
3. Whatever those steps are, will they something all users are expected to setup, or is this some error in the UK defaults as it feels like this should already be in place for me?

The code range doesn't really matter, it's the formula (and labels) on the Balance Sheet that control this.

In v17, the "Retained Earnings" line is the sum of the balances of all the Equity accounts:

I assume your new account is of type Equity, so indeed it will be included in Retained Earnings.

You can change the structure of the Financial Reports in the Settings menu (this is v18):

Note that in v18 there are two lines for Retained Earnings, current year and previous years but it does not separate out the Common Stock.  In v17 there is one line.

Unfortunately, Odoo documentation is sometimes like that - the "Cheat Sheet" is helpful but doesn't quite match up with current system!