[GNC] Trading accounts

[Mike Alexander]

This is one side of the story.  For another view of things you might 
take a look at 
https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.html.  You 
could also look at 
https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/gnucash.html which is 
outdated but still might be useful.

If you want to fix things by adding trading account splits where needed 
you could use the "Check and Repair" commands in the Actions menu.  If 
Trading Accounts are turned on these commands should add the splits 
where required.  I would certainly make a backup copy before trying 
this.

Mike

On 26 Jul 2022, at 20:39, David Carlson wrote:

> I forgot to address fixing the mess.
>
> I think there are two ways to fix it.  The easiest is to restore your 
> last
> backup from before turning on TA's.
> The other, iirc, is to manually delete all those TA's.
>
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:24 PM <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fred,
>>
>> Not early in the guide, but in the section dealing with multiple 
>> currencies
>> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html
>> and
>> discussed on the wiki 
>> (https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Trading_Accounts).
>>
>> I don't think anyone has yet written anything about any application 
>> to
>> trading
>> stocks and I don't think they are intended to be applied there.
>>
>> It is recommended to read the guide and help manual fully  before 
>> using
>> GnuCash.
>> I didn't, like many other users, but I did have a general accounting
>> background
>> coming in. You will find a lot of discussion in the mailing list 
>> archives
>> re
>> stock trading and unrealized gains and losses..
>>
>> If they were mentioned earlier it is likely they would confuse new 
>> users
>> with
>> limited experience of double entry accounting and accounting 
>> practice. It
>> is a
>> compromise to get new users in the door.
>>
>> Trading counts are about providing information in the accounts for
>> unrealized
>> gains and losses involving currency transactions.
>>
>> It is not normal accounting practice to recognize unrealized gains or
>> losses in
>> the books as income/expenses and the circumstances under which they 
>> may be
>> recognized in some jurisdictions are likely to be highly variable. 
>> They
>> are not
>> normally taxable until the gains are actually realized in the 
>> majority of
>> jurisdictions. That is why they aren't a default option.
>>
>> I wouldn't think there is any need to redo past transactions unless 
>> the
>> information re unrealized gains and losses through currency exchange
>> transactions is necessary for some specific reporting process.
>>
>> David Cousens
>>
>> On Tue, 2022-07-26 at 18:46 -0400, Fred Tydeman wrote:
>>> Over the past several months, I have been importing Quicken data 
>>> into
>>> GnuCash.  There is about 6 years of data and lots of transactions.
>> Besides
>>> normal income and expenses, that data involved many different stocks 
>>> and
>>> many different currencies.  Recently, I saw a reference to "Trading"
>>> accounts.  I have now enabled that feature.  Based on reading
>>> https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial, I believe
>> that
>>> my old transactions that involve currencies (and maybe stocks and 
>>> other
>>> assets whose value varies) were done wrong.
>>>
>>> Do I need to redo old transactions involving currencies?
>>> Do I need to redo old transactions involving stocks?
>>> Do I need to redo old transactions involving any assets whose price
>>> varies?  This probably depends upon the asset, eg. no for Real 
>>> Estate.
>>>
>>> Is there an easy way to fix the mess I have created?
>>>
>>> Aside:  I do not recall any mention of trading accounts in the 
>>> Tutorial
>>> early on when it talked about setting up the Chart of Accounts.
>>
>>>
>>> What is the reason that Trading accounts are not turned on by 
>>> default?
>>
>>
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