@TaxNewbie 

Retained earnings is credit balance account (hopefully) of accumulated profit (or loss) earned on your Income Statement each year. QB makes that entry for you automatically, so no need to do entries.

Distributions is a debit balance account. So when you pay out Distributions, entry is a debit to your Distributions account and a credit to Cash account.  So each each maintains its own running balance. 

The credit balance in Retained Earnings ideally keeps growing each year that you make a profit.

The debit balance in Distributions account increases each time you pay yourself Distributions.

The net of the two is your Equity, whether you have amounts in one account or keep them in two.

Personally, I prefer to keep them separate so I can see how much profit I have earned over years. 

Likewise, I prefer to be able to see how much I have taken in Distributions over the years also.

On my tax return, these two amounts are combined, but I like to keep visibility of both on books.

Just answered this question in greater detail for someone else, perhaps you can see if you click on me.