Sell stocks with a profit: Capital gains

[Alexander Engelhardt]

Hi David,

thank you for your answer.
The way you described is the way I am going to do it from now on. I was 
just curious about why the old way I did it was even possible.
When I had done it that way, I didn't think about it, but now it seems 
that those 200€ came out of nowhere.
This is just out of curiosity, but I am still wondering why GnuCash 
didn't throw an error and if those 200€ really came out of nowhere in 
the old way I did it.

Thanks again,
  Alex

On 01/03/2013 09:06 PM, David T. wrote:
> 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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