Balance sheet unrealized losses

[Paul Nadolny]

Hi, I've been working on this so I want to get back to you.

I turned on the "trading accounts" option and it took away the huge
"unrealized losses", etc. Then I went through all the multiple currency
transactions and accepted the GnuCash prompt to balance them even though
I'm not sure what that means. And then on the Balance sheet I get "Trading
gains" which makes the balance. So that was a big help for me. Thanks.

Now my next problem is to justify the difference between the balance sheet
of the previous year. The local currency lost a lot over the year and the
overall value of the assets is way down. But is it possible to justify the
difference?

It has to do with the devaluation of the local currency, but it seems
strange that the balance of the year that I just finished actually gave me
a "gain in trading". I thought it would be a "loss in trading" that would
account for the big loss of the total value of the assets.

If this is not too complicated I would like to get some advice.

Thanks. Paul



On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 3:03 AM, whwtan <whwtan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Ian,
>
> Wow thanks.
> That's a new link to me, for a long time now, the link which got me
> started in the first place was Peter's
> http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/
>
> Paul, the very good news is Gnucash is one of the very few software out
> there which is capable of achieving what you're attempting: Automated
> Multi-Currency tracking for your portfolio and accounts. You will be
> surprised that even many proprietary and paid software do not have this
> ability. So in a sense it makes Gnucash in an exclusive club of its own.
>
> The link I gave above is a discussion by Peter which gave birth to multi
> currency capability documented in http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~
> selinger/accounting/gnucash.html
> So you may wish to read that as well.
> I believe Mike who implemented "Trading Accounts" is on this list. :)
>
> What you are trying to do by yourself based on your description (and where
> you may made a few mistakes) is what "Trading Accounts" is doing for you
> automatically and "correctly". If you read and understand Peter's
> discussions, it will give you an idea what is going on for you in the
> background.
>
>
> "As you can tell, I have not studied accounting, but have been learning
> through practice. Paul"
> Welcome to the gang! :P I did two degrees back in school and, in my
> infinite stupidity, never took a day of lessons in
> accounting/finance/economics.
>
> William
>
>
> On 31/10/2013 6:08 AM, Paul Nadolny wrote:
>
>> John and Ian,
>> I looked over the discussion that you sent me, Ian, and it looks really
>> helpful, so I will work on it. It might take me awhile. Thank you.
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 9:35 PM, Ian K <ik522000 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>  In addition to checking your exchange rates in the Price Editor the other
>>> thing to check is if you have Trading Accounts on.
>>> If I'm not mistaken the fact that you are showing Unrealised gains/losses
>>> on
>>> the Balance sheet would indicate that you don't.
>>> With multiple currencies the Balance Sheet doesn't work without Trading
>>> accounts on. The unrealised gains/losses don't make sense.
>>> It was discussed here:
>>>
>>> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Trading-accounts-
>>> when-do-they-make-sense-td4656583.html
>>> <
>>> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Trading-accounts-
>>> when-do-they-make-sense-td4656583.html
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> View this message in context:
>>> http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Balance-sheet-unrealized-losses-
>>> tp4665094p4665107.html
>>> Sent from the GnuCash - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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>