Trial Balance does not include amount of Return of Capital Investment splits

[Chris Good]

May 18, 2017; 8:59pm  <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=user_nodes&user=375103> David Carlson-4 <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=user_nodes&user=375103>  Re: Trial Balance does not include amount of Return of Capital Investment splits 

Chris, 

It has been several years since I had a similar situation, but I see that 
GnuCash still has a stock split assistant (Chapter 11, I think of the 
tutorial) which helps to mash all of the parts of a split into a single 
transaction.  Did you try that? 

David C 

 

Hi David C,

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but as far as I can see, the Stock Split Assistant is only for when the no of shares either increases (split) or decreases (merger). In fact you cannot proceed unless you enter a no of shares. My requirement is a return of capital where the basis is reduced but the no of shares does not change. The return of capital is actually my attempt to record the first part of what should probably be referred to as a spin-off (as David T says) where 1 stock is reduced in value (but not the no of shares) and, the 2nd part, another stock is increased by the same (in this case) value WITH a no of shares issued.

 

I really don’t see much value in the Stock Split Assistant. It creates a split for the stock account, with the no of shares entered and 0 Price and 0 value. I haven’t seen this before. As I have not had to record any splits or merges, I have not done any testing of reports to see if they work with this.

 

The assistant does create a record in the price db if you enter something in the new price, which is presumably so the commodity can be correctly valued in the Advanced Portfolio Report or Trial Balance if you select Price Source ‘Nearest in time’, but the assistant seems to assume that the cost basis does not change which makes it of limited value to me. (Note to myself: I think the guide documentation needs to be made clearer about what it actually does. The example should also show what splits are created when you enter a Cash In Lieu value.)

 

When I tested entering a new price, I already had a price db record for the same date (from previous testing), and this caused GnuCash to crash. I’ll enter a bug for this.

 

Regards, Chris Good

 

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