Chapter 8 - investment accounts

[Jamestk]

*David, i have complied several of your replies together for continuity -
hope you don't mind, my replies are once again in bold and numbered *

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What debate are you referring to?  

*1 - It's really the debate surrounding a) data entry for stock splits as
you have highlighted, and b) how capital gains are calculated using GNU
Cash. The discussion (debate?) around these two concepts can be seen
evolving throughout this thread resulting in the use of 'LOTS'

Unfortunately both of these issues combined led me to abandon data entry for
another 18 -24 months and now my subsequent return here.

Chris in his reply (below) also mentions the issues as highlighted by John
further back

/I still want to update the guide to give examples of selling shares where
the capital gains splits are entered as a separate transaction to the sale
(as needed if using scrubbing). Thanks for raising this again. I have just
gone thru the nabble subject, there's 2 hours I'll never get back :-), and
realise I haven't mentioned (or tested) commission, and see that John Ralls
indicates there may be a problem with multiple uses of scrubbing (I have
tested this but will test again more thoroughly). Regards, Chris Good/  *

There was a discussion about how GnuCash handles multiple splits in a
register (which appears to be the debate you mention). This resulted in a
note being added to the tutorial at 4.3 to explain that situation.  
As to the question of how to calculate and record gains, every discussion I
have seen over the years has suggested that different users have different
needs and solutions. Personally, I prefer to have a separate transaction for
the gain, and I am satisfied with the scrub lots feature for calculating
that gain.  

The docs page you reference is outdated. Perhaps if you navigate from the
main site page, you will see a more current version, including screen shots.  
HTH, David  


*2 -Documentation sorted, my error using old links, please ignore*

I don’t understand—you said that the documentation lacked screen shots; when
I look at 

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*2 -Please see answer number 1 leading onto LOTS as highlighted in answer 2*

If your concern is that it’s too complicated to enter a stock sale in
GnuCash, there’s not a lot I can say, except to commiserate. It is a
challenge. However, I believe it’s a challenge because the underlying
accounting is a little bit challenging. GnuCash is only mirroring that
complexity. If you have specific suggestions on how that might be improved,
I know I would welcome hearing them. 

If your concern is that a stock transaction that includes a split for gains
shows twice in the register, the issue has been discussed on the lists on a
number of occasions. In those discussions, it has been explained that
GnuCash structures its data in a way that requires an entry in the register
for every split that is assigned to an account. Thus, a stock transaction
with splits for the change in shares and the change in account value will
apear twice in the register. This is, and will be, how GnuCash works. 

We have updated the documentation to clarify this. If it continues to
concern you, you might choose one of two tactics: first, you can enter the
gain as a separate transaction, as I do. Then, there will still be two
entries in the register, but they will be for different transactions—one
that says “Sell IBM”, and the second that says “IBM gain/loss.” As I said,
this works for me. The other option is to use the Transaction Journal view
in your account, which will only show the transaction once. 

If your concern is something different, please try to explain it a little
more clearly to us, so that we can try to address that. 

__________________________________________

*To summarise my question -  yes, GNU Cash Stock entry can be a little
confusing but happy to live with that, however (key bit >) one still needs
an accurate double entry method of accomplishing capital gains/losses once a
share is disposed of. The original method (without LOTS) suggested manually
subtracting one from the other outside of GNU Cash, see my response and
concerns to this within this thread. LOTS were then suggested as a way to
overcome this using the ‘scrubbing’ function, however as mentioned it didn’t
work as planned hence my revisit to see if it has been fixed.

Chris has already mentioned the documentation around LOTS and scrubbing
which may highlight any issues, wiki entry here along with explanation code
but nothing on the ‘scrubbing’ functionality or how it works.

https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Concept_of_Lots

Hope I haven’t confused things David*

I still don’t know what you’re referring to in this—or is this a generalized
question. What precisely do you see as broken?

David




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