Unbalanced balance sheet

[Derrick Ashby]

Hmm, I guess it's more broken than I thought.  Can you try the
Balance Sheet from CVS HEAD?

-derek

Well, I've never checked code out of a CVS repository before, but I guess I could give it a try.  I'd be reluctant to do so on my production machine, but I have a spare pc with linux installed that I could use.  I've graduated from Mandrake and/or Red Hat to using Gentoo in the last couple of years, and the spare pc hasn't been synced for a while, so it might take me a while to get the cvs version up and running (assuming I can get it to compile in the first place - not being a linux coding guru).  Any useful tips on how to proceed?

By the way - I had been running version 1.8.9, but I upgraded to 1.8.10, which the guys at Gentoo still have in testing.  This didn't make any difference to the Balance Sheet problem.

Quoting JIm <javastead at fastmail.us>:

>> How would one account for capital gains/losses when selling a commodity.
>> For instance, I buy 10 shares of ABC for $10 each , then sell all 10 for $20
>> each.
>> 
>> I would have something like:
>> Asset/checking                                   $100
>> Asset/ABC             10    $10   $100
>> 
>> Where 10 and $10 are the shares and price
>> 
>> Then selling I would have 
>> Asset/checking                         $200
>> Asset/ABC             -10    $20              $200
>> 
>> Would my balance sheet be off by $100 dollars (since my Asset/ABC started at
>> $0, and ended at $0, but my Checking increased by $100)?
>> 
>> If so, is there a better way to enter the transaction, or another
>> transaction to enter?
>  
>

Asset:Checking                    $200
Asset:ABC            -10  $20             $200
Asset:ABC              0    0     $100
Income:Cap Gains                          $100

-derek

I hate to be a killjoy, but this only works if you sell the entire parcel.  I had 420 shares in a stock that I entered at $31.  (In fact, I bought them in 1991 at $7.50!) I then sold 200 of them at $33, and entered my profit of $400 as a Capital Gain.  The inbalance varied depending on what setting I had for price calculation.  It was closest to balance when that was set to Most Recent.  When I claimed to have sold the entire parcel, it balanced.  I think that this indicates that the program has a problem when both the quantity and price of a commodity changes.

Derrick