[GNC] Report seems to pull wrong amount from transaction

[Art Chimes]

I think D. wins this round. Not exactly the right answer, but close
enough that it pointed me to the explanation. I hope you'll forgive
the longish explanation that follows.

My report apparently uses the number of shares x the price per share
to compute the dollar amount. Possibly the dollar value of the
transaction is not stored in the user's data file but rather is
computed on the fly? The incorrect dollar figure in the report was the
product of the correct number of shares times an incorrect share
price. But the share price in the account register is correct. So
where is the incorrect share price coming from?

The account from which the withdrawal was made is not a publicly
traded fund but is a pension plan, so there is no way (that I know if)
to retrieve the share price automagically. By force of habit, from my
Quicken days, I enter each week's closing share prices into the Price
Database. So Jan. 24 and 31, Fridays, are in there, but not the day of
this transaction (Wednesday, Jan 29).

That's a bit of a puzzle. I though that if I entered a transaction
into an account register, it would appear in the Price Database. Maybe
because I didn't enter the price manually and it was computed from the
dollar value and number of shares that I did enter? Anyway, there was
no entry for for Jan. 29.

Anyway, I quickly determined that the incorrect dollar amount entered
was the result of multiplying the number of shares times the share
price on Jan 31 — the closest date in the Price Database. I manually
added the correct share price for Jan. 29. And now the report has the
correct dollar amounts.

Problem solved. But I wonder if I should file an enhancement request
that reports using a calculated value based on a close but not exact
share price should be flagged (with an asterisk and footnote?) as
questionable.

Thanks all who chipped in to help solve this mystery Great community here!

Art


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "D." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
To: Art Chimes <artsonline at gmail.com>
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org, Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net>
Bcc:
Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 08:14:40 +0530
Subject: Re: [GNC] Report seems to pull wrong amount from transaction
I'd look at the price source used in the report (on the report
options). It sounds to me like the report is converting the January
shares sold at the February/March price.


-------- Original Message --------
From: Art Chimes <artsonline at gmail.com>
Sent: Wed May 13 01:57:24 GMT+05:30 2020
To: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>, Adrien Monteleone
<adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Report seems to pull wrong amount from transaction

Adrien's quick reply is below (edited) with my responses.

=================

My first inklings would be to ask:

1. Do these transactions involve other currencies?
===No, all in USD

2. Are they part of a bill/invoice that has a tax applied to a line
item using the business tax tables?
===No, strictly personal account.


3. Do the specific transactions (when showing all splits) show the
amount for that account as exactly $150 or $146? If the latter, what
split(s) appear to balance out the $4 difference?
===That was the first think I looked at. All three transactions in my
register are structured identically, but the January split is
different than the two others, which are the same. (I made up the
numbers, so I hope everything balances. It does in my actual account.)

January transaction
Assets:Checking  buy 118.66 [net deposited in my checking account]
Expense:Withholding tax  buy 31.34 [sent to the IRS]
Assets:Fund ABCDX [source of withdrawal]  sell 150 [withdrawn from
financial institution]
(((Jan. shows on the Report as 146, NOT consistent with register)))

February and March transaction
Assets:Checking  buy 107.45 [net deposited in my checking account]
Expense:Withholding tax  buy 42.55 [sent to the IRS]
Assets:Fund ABCDX [source of withdrawal]  sell 150 [withdrawn from
financial institution]
(((Both Feb. and Mar. show on the Report as 150, consistent with register)))

4. Is your account selection in the Report Options limited to that one
account? Are you reporting on the account for the financial
institution, where the funds come from, or from the target account
where the funds land?
===Account selection in Report Options is limited to one account, the
one from which the funds are taken. All three transactions involved
the same dollar value (though the number of shares of the mutual fund
were different). The full amount was paid out of the account (no fee
charged) and received into my checking account after tax withholding
was deducted.


One other thing of possible relevance. I mentioned that the linked
amounts in the report took me to the right account but not to the
specific transaction. Now, the links go right to the corresponding
transaction. I changed up a couple of things in the report (currency
options), then went back to the previous options, and somehow that
fixed it.

Thanks for your efforts to troubleshoot this puzzling (to me) behavior!

Art


On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 12:29 PM Art Chimes <artsonline at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This seems like a bug to me, but maybe I'm missing something.
>
> I have an account from which I have a regular, automatic withdrawal
> scheduled with the financial institution. The amount is the same every
> month, let's say $150.
>
> My YTD report shows this year's three withdrawals to date (plus
> another transaction, unrelated to the automatic ones).  However, the
> January withdrawal on the report shows an incorrect amount, a few
> dollars less, $146.
>
> All three accounts were subject to tax withholding. The January
> withholding was different than the later withdrawals, but otherwise
> the amount withdrawn from the account was the same in all monthly
> withdrawals, i.e. $150.
>
> A possible clue: When I click on the hyperlinked amount in the report,
> it links to the correct account but not to the specific transactions.
> (In other reports I spot-checked, it takes me directly to the
> transaction.)
>
> I could not reproduce this error in a few other random reports I generated.
>
> Can you help?  Thanks.
>
> Art