[GNC] "Stock" Liabilities do not show up under liabilities in Balance Sheet report

David Cousens davidcousens at bigpond.com
Mon Jan 27 00:32:44 EST 2020


Hi Bo,

I think I understand what has happened. Accounts of type stock should have an Asset account as their parent account not
a Liability account. When you are issued stock as unpaid the Liability account will simply be an account of type
Liability not of type Stock. A possible account tree to cover this might look like (":" denoting a subaccount).

Assets:Investments:Brokerage:ABCCorp

Liabilities:Investments:Unpaid Stock:ABCCorp

Here Assets, Assets:Investments and Assets Investments:Brokerage will be accounts of type Asset and ABCcorp is of type
Stock  and Liabilities, Liabilities:Investments,  Liabilities:Investments:Unpaid Stock and
Liabilities:Investments:Unpaid Stock:ABCCorp are all accounts of type Liability.

The type and parent are set in the Edit Account dialog. You should be able to change them in the dialog

A typical transaction on issues of 100 shares the stock with a face value of $10 might look something like:
                                      no    Price   Debit    Credit
Assets:Investments:Brokerage:ABCCorp  100   $10     $1000 
Liabilities:Investments:Unpaid Stock:ABCCorp                 $1000

With any luck when you have them setup like this they should then appear correctly in the Balance Sheet. Give it a try
and let us know how you go.

David


On Mon, 2020-01-27 at 02:17 +0000, Bo Byrd via gnucash-user wrote:
>  
> Hi yes exactly - it its the other case you describe for "unpaid" issues. Under report options I select all accounts,
> and those liabilities do show up - but they show up in the assets section at the top of the report (where the
> calculation correctly subtracts them from my assets). All that is at the bottom of my balance sheet report is A/P and
> Credit Card accounts.
> 
> I think it has something to do with how I created a "stock" account under the top-level Liabilites account, and then
> how I must record transactions - for example if I am to show receipt of 100 units, I will enter "-100" under the "Tot
> Shares" column for the liability account split, and then a "+100" under the "Tot Shares" for the asset account side
> split.
> 
> But then the liability doesnt show up under liabilities - it shows up in the top section "Assets" (as a negative
> value). So its not really off at all as far as the numbers/maths go, its just weird that its showing up top.
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday Jan 26, 2020; 5:47pm CST, David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> The situation you are describing is not clear. By stock do you mean shares
> which are issued to you but which you have not purchased, perhaps as part of
> a stock option?
> 
> It is not clear why you would record this with splits to both Assets and
> Lliabilities. You mention "their liability account". Their liability account
> should not appear in your books , only liabilities, that is obligations you
> have to pay someone, that you have incurred. One would normally record any
> acquistion of stock as an asset against equity, either the temporary income
> and expense accounts of equity or a permanent equity account or as a
> transfer from another asset account. You would normally only incur a
> liability if you borrowed the money to purchase the stock for example, but
> you borrow it not the asset you purchase with it.
> 
> The other case could be if the stock was "unpaid" shares for example where
> you receive an issue, but may be called upon to pay for them at a future
> date. Then it may be appropriate to record that future possible demand for
> payment as a liability. In this case the asset value is neutral in your
> accounts (apart from capital gains and dividends) and it should be included
> in both the totals for assets and liabilities. You may need to check which
> accounts are selected for inclusion in the Balance sheet report and which
> are selected to be displayed explicitly in the report in the Edit->Report
> Options.
> 
> You may have to describe the situation in a bit more detail but this may
> really an accounting question and perhaps you should seek professional
> advice in your jurisdiction on how to record the particular situation.
> 
> David Cousens
> 
> 
> 
> -----
> David Cousens
-- 
Dr David R Cousens
B.Sc, M.Prof. Acc., Ph.D., G.C.Ed



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