[GNC] How to enter zero-share transaction splits in an Asset:Stock account?

Evelyn Yamanaka evelyn.yamanaka at gmail.com
Sun Feb 28 15:17:42 EST 2021


I'm trying to enter a split with zero shares in a stock account for the
purpose of manually recording capital gains/losses. I'm using GnuCash 4.4
on Win 10.

According to the gnucash-guide documentation:
-----
In order for GnuCash to commit the zero-share, zero-price split for account
Assets:Stock:SYMBOL to the transaction in the following schemes, you *must*
Tab out of that
split. If you use the Enter key, GnuCash will convert the split into shares
of the commodity
-----

However, when I do this, the share and price columns are
STILL automatically populated with non-zero amounts.

In detail, I am doing this:
1. Click on a new transaction
2. Enter date, <TAB>
3. <TAB> out of [Num]
4. Enter transaction description, <TAB>
5. (Advance to first split) <TAB> out of [Action]
6. Enter split description, <TAB>
7. ([Account] auto-populated with current account) <TAB> out of [Account]
8. <TAB> out of [Shares], leaving it blank
9. <TAB> out of [Price], leaving it blank
10. Enter "100" into [Debit], <TAB>
11. <TAB> out of [Credit]

At this point, the next line / split is activated. However, [Shares] from
the split I just left is automatically populated with the amount I entered
in [Debit]. The same thing happens if I enter a value for [Credit] instead.
Essentially, I cannot leave the first split without [Shares] automatically
taking the value from either [Credit] or [Debit].

At no point in this process have I hit <Enter>.

I know there is the option to use automatic lots to create capital
gain/loss transactions. However, I'm recording past SpecID transactions for
which individual lot information is not available, and the number and
complexity of those transactions make it impractical to reverse engineer
specific lot information. Therefore, I'm trying to manually record realized
capital gains/losses without assigning them to specific lots. However, the
inability to enter zero-share transactions into Asset:Stock accounts is
preventing me from doing this.


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