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

[Adrien Monteleone]

Although the Trading Accounts section and total are selected to be included by default, the accounts are not. When I run an Income Statement, they do not appear and are not included in my bottom line Profit/Loss net.

If I want them to appear, I simply select them in the Options > Accounts tab. The Net Profit/Loss will include them in the calculation. (A Trading Gain will adjust upwards, a Trading Loss downwards, as expected) The section is labeled and separated from the Income/Revenue section as you mentioned.

By default, the Balance Sheet includes the accounts. If I want a version of this report without them, I simply de-select them in the Options > Accounts tab. The result is that my Retained Earnings/Losses is adjusted accordingly. (this is a calculated line, not one from a real Equity:Retained Earnings account)

So you can have what you are after, just not by default.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Apr 12, 2020 w16d103, at 2:55 PM, David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Adrien,
> 
> But it does include the gains and losses from the trading account as
> realized gains and losses and in this case they also appear in the Balance
> Sheet in this case as Trading Losses.  The Imbalance AUD of -0.26 resulted
> because i tried to create a Realized gains Transaction from the trading
> account but it would not let me. If I delete that transaction, the Imbalance
> Aud goes away and all is good.
> Trading_test_balance_sheet_realized_gains_transaction_deleted.png
> <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t375329/Trading_test_balance_sheet_realized_gains_transaction_deleted.png>  
> 
> I personally don't thing the trading gains and losses should appear in the
> Balance sheet at all but should only appear in the Income Statement for the
> period as in effect they are actually or should be Income accounts. The
> trading account type must be  basically of type Asset which gets them
> included in the Assets total and then to get a balance you have to include
> the trading gains and losses in Equity . 
> 
> I remember there was a bit of discussion about this when  the balance sheets
> were being updated a year or two ago. I think Chris Lam was doing that work
> . As i didn't use the trading accounts at the time I don't think I butted in
> on that one.
> 
> David