[GNC] Getting My Account To Trial Balance

Thu Jul 26 00:21:06 EDT 2018

David T,

Yes, I trade securities and GnuCash can handle my books as well as it can a
very simple set of books.
Shug had indicated in an earlier message that in this case there was only
one currency and no securities and Adrien and I were trying to tailor our
answers to his case.

David C

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 8:51 PM David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> David,
>
> I imagine that the number of GnuCash users who only have accounts in a
> single currency (i.e., without any investments in stocks, mutual funds, or
> other commodities) is probably pretty small.
>
> For those who *do* have such holdings, a balanced transaction will still
> fail the trial balance if the gain or loss isn’t entered. In this instance,
> there will be no entries in IMBALANCE-XXX, since each transaction balances.
> Example: buy 10 shares of X for $100, using cash from your checking account
> (credit/debit of $100). Then sell those shares for $150 (debit/credit of
> $150). Both transaction balance—but where did that extra cash come from?
> Without entering the gain of $50 as income, the Trial balance will fail.
> You can enter that gain manually, or use trading accounts or the scrub lots
> feature to help manage this.
>
> David T.
>
> On July 25, 2018 at 7:45:10 PM, David Carlson (david.carlson.417 at gmail.com)
> wrote:
>
> I have no experience with release 3.2 or with High Sierra, so I hope others
> can help Shug with reports.
>
> As Adrien Monteleone and David T both point out, the Trial Balance report
> may be of little or no value to users who only use one currency and do not
> buy or sell stock or other commodities. You could probably skip that
> report altogether.
>
> GnuCash forces every transaction to either be a perfectly balanced double
> entry transaction in one currency or it automatically adds one of the two
> accounts that Adrien Monteleone mentioned. When those are equal to zero,
> your books are balanced
>
> The Trial Balance report is for users with more complex needs.
>
> David C.
>
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 6:05 PM, Adrien Monteleone <
> adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:
>
> > I get that same error. (MacOS High Sierra, GnuCash 3.2)
> >
> > My suspicion is misconfigured report options, but I’m not familiar with
> > the report enough to know which one(s). I never bother with this report
> > because I don’t use the Close Books function. I also don’t really
> > understand it’s purpose with a perpetual system in light of the existence
> > of the orphan-xxx and imbalance-xxx accounts. If those are both zero, how
> > does one still need to adjust anything before closing books?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Adrien
> >
> > > On Jul 25, 2018, at 5:49 PM, David Carlson <
> david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > That is a bird of a different feather. Then it will help to know which
> > > release you are using and what operating system your computer has,
> > because
> > > the solution may be to switch to a different release or to try some
> more
> > > complex debugging if you are up to it.
> > >
> > > Do include gnucash-user at gnucash.org in every reply so other users see
> > the
> > > comments.
> > >
> > > David C
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 3:13 PM, H M MacDonald OBE <
> > sassunachobe at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi David/Richard
> > >>
> > >> The error message is as follows:
> > >>
> > >> *Report error*
> > >>
> > >> *An error occurred while running the report.*
> > >>
> > >> It doesn’t give any clue as to what’s wrong.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks.
> > >>
> > >> Shug
> > >>
> > >> From: D <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
> > >> Date: Wednesday, 25 July 2018 at 20:33
> > >> To: David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>, Hugh MacDonald OBE <
> > >> spahonsecobe at gmail.com>
> > >> Cc: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> > >> Subject: Re: [GNC] GETTING MY ACCOUNT TO TRIAL BALANCE
> > >>
> > >> Shug,
> > >>
> > >> I would ask you to tell us what error message you have received,
> since I
> > >> don't usually see any error messages when I run this report. (I do
> have
> > >> trouble getting this report to balance, however).
> > >>
> > >> However, David has made useful advice regarding tracking transaction
> > gain
> > >> or loss; I would add that in Gnucash, a commodity is a broadly defined
> > >> concept, and covers anything you have that is not counted in your
> > default
> > >> currency.
> > >>
> > >> In other words, stocks, mutual funds, as well as accounts denominated
> in
> > >> another currency will all fall into this category, and any time you
> > have a
> > >> transaction involving thread accounts, you will need to account for
> > gain or
> > >> loss hidden in the conversion.
> > >>
> > >> David T
> > >>
> > >> On July 25, 2018, at 1:52 PM, David Carlson <
> > david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> I assume that you mean the debits do not equal the credits rather than
> > that
> > >> GnuCash failed to generate the report.
> > >>
> > >> This is commonly the result of selling a commodity for a different
> price
> > >> than what was originally paid without correctly accounting for the
> > profit
> > >> or loss. One technique to close in on a transaction contributing to
> the
> > >> difference is to include a shorter time period in the report until the
> > >> values do balance. Once the date is determined, look for a commodity
> > >> transaction that is not balanced by a profit or loss.
> > >>
> > >> David C
> > >>
> > >> On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 12:20 PM, H Millar MacDonald OBE <
> > >> spahonsecobe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Hi
> > >>
> > >> I¹ve just become involved with GnuCash 3.2 and set up my first
> accounts
> > for
> > >> our club. It all looks okay except and will provide a profit and loss
> > >> report on Income and Expenditure which is good. However, when I try to
> > >> get
> > >> a Trial Balance I get an error message which according to Google seems
> > to
> > >> be
> > >> quite common. I don¹t know where to start to fix this. Can anyone
> > offer
> > >> any advice please? I am an absolute novice at all of this so please be
> > >> patient with my request.
> > >>
> > >> Many thanks.
> > >>
> > >> Shug
> > >>
> > >>
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