[GNC] How to Realized Gain/Loss when turned on trading account ?

[Adrien Monteleone]

David,

I’ve seen that problem if you try to fetch rates or let GnuCash use a rate from the price db when you know both the debit and credit in each currency to be exact.

Let’s take the example of purchasing an ounce of silver from a coin dealer for $17.34:

Dr. Assets:Precious Metals:Silver	XAG1.0000
  Cr. Assets:Cash				$17.34

This of course does not numerically balance. So GnuCash will throw the dialog for you to tell it how to balance. In this case, you know the exact price of the silver, so you use the 'credit amount' radio button and enter “17.34”. GnuCash will then indicate the price ratio and you can commit the dialog. Two extra splits will appear, one for XAG and one for USD in the respective trading accounts so the transaction will balance—e.g.,

Dr. Assets:Precious Metals:Silver	XAG1.0000
Dr. Trading:Currency:USD		$17.34
  Cr. Assets:Cash				$17.34
  Cr. Trading:Currency:XAG			XAG1.0000


I’m sure there are use cases for the option to exist, but I can’t think of a real world scenario where you are recording a currency exchange where you don’t already know the exact price. So I’m not sure how useful it is to use the ‘rate' radio button option. Maybe someone who uses it can chime in.

Let’s say you chose that option, but the most recent price (or the one you just fetched) was $17.09 per ounce.

Then GnuCash would create the two trading splits again, but this time *also* one or more Imbalance splits (maybe one for each currency) to balance the difference of $17.09 and $17.34.

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Adrien



> On Apr 11, 2020 w15d102, at 2:21 AM, David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> Long 
> 
> I have tried experimenting with the trading accounts. I confess to finding
> the whole currency exchange dialog totally confusing along with the random
> Imbalance amounts which are intoduced which you somehow have to get back to
> zero. I am going to have to play and experiment a lot more when I have a bit
> of spare time and work through the manual.
> 
> The best bet will be if someone who uses them guides you through it at this
> point.