Guide Investment selling examples

[David T.]

Chris,

I agree that this is a confusing situation. In fact, in my own books, I have decided to avoid such double-split entries by reporting each aspect as a seprate transaction—that is, I create the sale transaction, and then I create a separate transaction for the Gain or loss. This makes it possible to have the descriptions match my expectation, and makes it easier for me to figure out what the register is showing me.

This problem does come up with new users, and so a brief note (perhaps in the section that explains transactions) that informs users that a single transaction will appear in a register as many times as there are splits for that account.

An additional idea might be to rewrite the capital gain section to show the two aspects (the sale and the gain) as separate transactions. That would clarify the process for new users, I think.There would still need to be the note above, and I imagine a note explaining that the user can enter the transaction as a single, multi-spilt entry. 

David T.

> On Jul 30, 2016, at 7:13 AM, Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: John Ralls [mailto:jralls at ceridwen.us]
>> Sent: Saturday, 30 July 2016 9:25 AM
>> To: Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au>
>> Cc: gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
>> Subject: Re: Guide Investment selling examples
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jul 28, 2016, at 7:38 PM, Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Why do the images in the Guide seem to duplicate the sale transactions.
>> I.e.
>>> in the attached, there seems to be 2 transactions for 03/21/2006 but
>>> the no of shares balance indicates there is only 1?
>>> 
>>> Is this something an old version used to do?  If so, this must be very
>>> confusing to new users. Should I redo these screen shots?
>> 
>> No, the screen shot is correct. It can indeed be a bit confusing.
>> 
>> There are two transaction entries because the transaction has two splits,
> one
>> for "Gross Sale" and the other for "Profit" (i.e. capital gain). It's done
> this way
>> to tie together the two parts of the transaction; it doesn't have to be
> and if
>> you use the Scrub Lots function it isn't; that makes two transactions and
> uses
>> the lot slots to tie them together.
>> 
>> Read carefully Chapter 8 a couple of times and it should start to make
> sense.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> John Ralls
> 
> Hi John,
> 
> Ah! As you say, it's because there are 2 splits to the stock account in the
> same transaction, and the register is in Auto-Split view.  Basic view does
> similar.
> I'd forgotten it does this because I just about always use Transaction
> Journal view.
> 
> The Help manual says: Basic Ledger: The default one line per transaction
> style.
> 
> This is confusing UI and I think I should document it.
> I think the screen shots should also be in Transaction Journal view or
> should mention why there appears to be duplicate transactions.
> Is anyone still working on the new register?
> 
> I'm currently working on documenting using Lots with investments.
> 
> Regards,
> Chris Good
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