trial balance - how to find mismatch question

[Wm]

On 16/02/2018 04:55, David T. via gnucash-devel wrote:
> I don’t believe I’ve seen anywhere in this thread any attempt to explain that there is a difference between IMBALANCE-XXX (an indication that you have transactions that lacked a balancing split) and the Imbalance entry in the Trial Balance report. This latter most likely indicates (as David C. has hinted) that your books have capital or currency gains or losses that haven’t been entered into the books. 

I think that's advanced for most readers of this thread.

>If you buy a stock for $100 using a balanced transaction, and later sell that share for $150 (we wish!) in a balanced transaction, GnuCash will wonder where you got an additional $50. Both transactions balance, but the books don’t. That is why you usually have an entry (either as a separate transaction, or as splits in the sell transaction) that account for this gain.
> 
> Of course, it can get complex.

In pure-ish accounting terms it doesn't matter.  The IMBALANCE and 
similar are what used to be called suspense accounts.

It is, of course, good behaviour to balance tx as they happen.

And a TB is a moment in time and value of stuff will be different the 
second afterwards.


For this reason TB's (and balance sheets) are usually presumed to not be 
in the future and if dated today (which I prefer) actually not 
representing today's prices, etc if I haven't fetched them.

In plain terms: documents are interpreted and should be clear.  I think 
the prices at the bottom of a report make most things clear.

-- 
Wm