Sell stocks with a profit: Capital gains

[David T.]

Alex--

Gnucash can be challenging in this scenario. However, if you follow the instructions in the Guide page you referenced, you should come out right. Basically, you need to document the capital gain as income; this is explained and the steps are outlined in the second paragraph of the guide. 

The example in 8.7.1 shows what you need to do. Pay specific attention to line 3 of this example, which shows "Assets:Stock:SYMBOL" followed by 0 shares and 0 price with a buy value of $1600. That's the line you need, which in your case would read "Assets:Current Assets:myfund" "0", "0" and "200"

Next, you'll balance this with a split from an appropriate income account, which is shown in the example on Line 4.

That should document the profit on your sale.

Be sure to heed the note that tells you to Tab out of the split, or you'll have headaches. 


HTH, 

David



________________________________
 From: Alexander Engelhardt <kamaitachi at gmx.de>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org 
Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2013 7:08 AM
Subject: Sell stocks with a profit: Capital gains
 
Hello Gnucash users,

I have only today read this section of the manual:
http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/invest-sell1.html#invest-sellexample2

So before that, I have entered my actions of selling stocks in a different way, without the Income:Capital Gains account. Here is an example of how I entered my sells:
http://i.imgur.com/8PvZi.png

In this simple example, I bought 10 stocks for 100€ each, i.e. spent 1000€. Then I sold the 10 pieces for 120€ each, i.e. gained 1200€. This is a 200€ increase in my net assets, but there is no income account where the 200€ came from.
When I have done it this way, I now believe that I have created 200€ out of nothing. I don't understand where they come from, and why GnuCash didn't complain when I entered it this way.

Can anyone clear this up for me?

Thanks in advance,
Alex
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