[GNC] Getting My Account To Trial Balance

[David Carlson]

For some reason I have not seen RTFM in this discussion yet.  I do not have
the manual for release 3.2 handy, but the chapter on investments in the
Tutorial for the 2.6.x series is fine reading and there is an entire
chapter on ways to track capital gains in GnuCash.

The Trial Balance report is not mentioned in that chapter, but it does
report unrealized gains as measured several different ways as the user
might prefer, and it shows the resulting imbalance when profits are not
converted from unrealized to realized .

Over the years there have been many discussions on this userlist about the
relative merits of various methods that can be used to track capital gains
in GnuCash, including Trading Accounts.  I do not think any one method is
best for everyone.

David C

On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 7:21 AM, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown at fastmail.fm>
wrote:

> David T. wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Is that really what happens?  I can't understand why, if it does. Yes, you
> end up with an extra $50 in cash, and you also end up with MINUS $50 in the
> investment: the original debit of $100, and the sale credit of $50, leaving
> a credit (minus) balance of $50. As far as I can see, the trial balance
> still balances.
>
> Of course, a negative balance in an investment account should raise a red
> flag when (if) yo notice it: "Oops, I forgot to enter the gain as a
> transaction." But I don't see how it should make the trial balance fail.
>
> BTW, instead of a separate transaction, I might record the gain as a split:
> Assets:Cash $150 debit
> Assets:Investment $100 credit
> Income:Gain on investments $50 credit
>
> Is there any disadvantage to doing that, versus two transactions?
> Assets:Investment $50 debit
> Income:Gain on Investments $50 credit
> Assets:Cash $150 debit
> Assets::Investment $150 credit
>
> --
> Stan Brown
> the_stan_brown at fastmail.fm
> http://BrownMath.com
> http://OakRoadSystems.com/
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