[GNC] Cashflow-like report to show realized and unrealiz

[David T.]

IANAA, but as I understand it, gnucash doesn't track unrealized gains well mostly because traditional accounting isn't focused on unrealized gains. I'm told that accountants want to be certain that the *amount* of what you have is accurate. The value of that is less interesting.

Honestly, the deeper you dig in that hole, the crazier it seems to get. Value as determined by whom? At what time? In what jurisdiction? In which currency? At what exchange rate? All of these will affect a valuation that ultimately is a fantasy. Just ask any art collector...

None of it is real until someone pays for it-- and then you have a transaction to record it. 

David 

 
 
  On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 15:50, Chary Chary<chary314 at gmail.com> wrote:   Christopher,

thanks.

But I must say, I still have a sneaky feeling, that I may be missing
something, because I just don't understand how people who deal with several
currencies and who have stock can possibly live without such report, which
would show unrealized gains.

Without report with unrealized gains you have a situation, that you have
some balance at the beginning, balance at the end, but you have no report,
which would show how you got from balance at the beginning to balance at
the end. Even though all your individual transactions are balanced, if you
add them all together they will not produce a delta between balance sheets,
in case you deal with  more then one currency or have stock / gold
(anything).

In a very simple situation:

Say I want to report in EUR, but I keep money in USD. Say I have 1000 USD
and exchange rate was 1:1 at the beginning.
So, starting balance sheet will say, that I have 1000 EUR
Then exchange rate changed and now 1 USD costs 2 EUR. So, all of a sudden
balance sheet at the closing will show, that I now have 2000 EUR.
But how did happen?
I would then expect some line, saying something like: "unrealized gain due
to USD/EUR" exchange rate changes"  - 1000 EURO.

The same applies to stock changes.

Am I talking some nonsense? How do people manage their finance without such
analysis in our modern world?

On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 1:49 PM Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Unfortunately there is *no* income statement type report which will
> calculate unrealized gains for you.
> Your best bet is to reevaluate periodically using the usual balance sheet.
>
> On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 06:28, Chary Chary <chary314 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> thank you for help, but I just can't make it work.
>>
>> I try a very simple setup:
>>
>> Main currency - Euro
>>
>> 1000 USD are moved to checking Account at the beginning of the period.
>>
>> Exchange rate at the beginning - 1 USD costs 1 Euro
>>
>> Middle of the year it changes - 1 USD costs 2 Euro
>>
>> No transactions
>>
>> Net Worth Barchart  correctly shows increase is Net Worth throughout
>> the year. However Income statement report does not show any traces on why
>> net wort has increased now.
>>
>> Based on my understanding of the Tutorial on multiple currency accounting
>> (
>> https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.html ) I would
>> expect, that the statement would include line:
>>
>> Unrealized gain due to USD/Euro exchange rate  - 1000 Euro  or something
>> similar
>>
>>
>> Any ideas on how to achieve this with Gnucash?
>>
>> For illustration I have created simple document with screenshots as well
>> my
>> test file
>>
>> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T3KEhAOkkytyW1Dne0vVs259cv0WxtfK
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 1:02 AM Chary Chary <chary314 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Hello everybody,
>> >
>> > I just started learning gnucash with the goal to depart from my from my
>> > Excel-based bookkeeping system with pivot tables, so forgive me if I ask
>> > stupid question. i think I read pretty much all of the help file, but
>> still
>> > didn't understand whether the following is possible:
>> >
>> > I am just wondering  whether there is a cashflow-like report which shows
>> > also realized and unrealized gains for certain period
>> >
>> > What exactly I mean by this:
>> >
>> > Say at the beginning of the year I have produced a Balance Sheet report.
>> > This report shows how much assets I have, which liabilities and delta
>> > between them. Suppose at begging of the year I had checking accounts in
>> USD
>> > and Euro and some stock.
>> > Throughout the year I was getting salary, paying expenses, at the same
>> > time exchange rate was changing, stock price was changing etc. My be I
>> sold
>> > some stock, moved money between USD and Euro accounts
>> >
>> > Now at the end of the year I have produced a new balance sheet.
>> >
>> > So, I want to be able to explain a delta between a balance sheet at the
>> > beginning of the ear and at the end.
>> >
>> > E.g.:
>> >
>> > I got so much salary
>> > I paid so much costs
>> >
>> > But also:
>> > Lost so much due to exchange rate change
>> > Gained to much due to stock price increase etc.
>> >
>> > So, effectively I need to be able to drill down in the delta in Balance
>> > Sheet report
>> >
>> > Regards.
>> > Chary
>> >
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