[GNC] Transferring mutual funds

[David Carlson]

AC,

Yes, to keep GnuCash happy you want to transfer the cost basis as well as
the securities to the new brokerage account.  By entering the transactions
as a sale at the same price that you purchased the the security and a new
purchase at that same price, you are transferring the cost basis, Since
that is not a real sale, there is no realized gain or loss to report to the
taxman until you really do sell

If you didn't transfer the cost, then GnuCash would think that the old
account still had a cost for a now non-existent asset and the new account
got the security free.  You may have to provide that same information to
your broker or custodian if they didn't get it automatically.



On Wed, Jul 5, 2023 at 3:31 PM AC <gnucash at acarver.net> wrote:

> Answering two at once:
>
> Fred: No I did not work in split view. I was just working at the single
> account level.
>
> David: Are you saying I need to instruct GnuCash to treat the transfer
> as a sale even though there was no sale thus no realized gains/losses
> and no actual change in the cost basis?
>
> On 2023-07-05 10:07, David Carlson wrote:
> > AC,
> >
> > Fred implied, but didn't elaborate on the point that the shares in the
> > original brokerage account had a cost basis that was incurred when they
> > were purchased.  When you transfer them out, that is equivalent to a sale
> > or closing transaction, and the cost basis should be adjusted
> accordingly,
> > even though there were no funds involved.  Of course, that exact cost
> basis
> > needs to be added to the receiving account as if the shares were
> purchased
> > at the original price.  This used to be described in great detail in one
> of
> > the help manuals, including the somewhat tricky procedure to enter
> realized
> > gains when an actual sale happens but I haven't checked lately to see if
> > those parts are still there.  I know that if you do not do those things
> and
> > later run a trial balance or if you use the Investment Portfolio report,
> > you will quickly see the error of your ways.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 5, 2023 at 11:33 AM Fred Bone <Fred at mandfb.me.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> On 04 July 2023 at 16:29, AC said:
> >>
> >>> I recently moved some mutual funds from one brokerage to another. The
> >>> process did not involve a sale, it was just a transfer of control from
> >> the
> >>> old to the new.
> >>>
> >>> In my current books I keep mutual funds listed as subaccount under each
> >>> brokerage as such with their respective security/currency:
> >>>
> >>> Investments
> >>> -Brokerage 1 (currency)
> >>> --Fund A (security A)
> >>> --Fund B (security B)
> >>> -Brokerage 2 (currency)
> >>> --Fund A (security A)
> >>> --Fund C (security C)
> >>> --Fund D (security D)
> >>>
> >>> I wanted to expand this to add the new brokerage and then perform a
> >>> transfer of the funds from one to the other. Let's assume I moved the
> >>> funds under Brokerage 1 to Brokerage 3. So the tree would look like the
> >>> simplified version below (leaving out Brokerage 2 as it is unaffected):
> >>>
> >>> Investments
> >>> -Brokerage 1 (currency)
> >>> --Fund A (security A)
> >>> --Fund B (security B)
> >>> -Brokerage 3 (currency)
> >>> --Fund A (security A)
> >>> --Fund B (security B)
> >>>
> >>> The securities are the same because it's the same original mutual
> funds,
> >>> just moved to another brokerage. The tree would be left intact with the
> >>> funds under Brokerage 1 being zeroed out and the funds under Brokerage
> 3
> >>> starting off with the incoming values.
> >>>
> >>> My natural tendency was to create a transfer directly within Brokerage
> 1
> >>> Fund A that moved all the shares over to Brokerage 3 Fund A but that
> >>> didn't create the transaction I expected.
> >>>
> >>> By example, I transferred Fund A on July 1 which contained 10 shares at
> >>> the price of the shares on that day. So in Brokerage 1 I entered -10
> >>> shares with a total sell price of X as listed on the statement from
> >>> Brokerage 1. The price is autocalculated and the balance correctly goes
> >> to
> >>> zero.
> >>>
> >>> Looking inside the Brokerage 3 Fund A account I only see a transaction
> >>> that has an amount in the buy column but no shares and a balance of
> zero.
> >>> I can manually enter the same number of shares in that partially empty
> >>> transaction but why was my thought about the transfer incorrect? Should
> >> it
> >>> have not transferred those shares over as well?
> >>
> >> Did you work in split view?
> >>
> >> I can replicate what I think you are saying if I don't enter the
> separate
> >> splits.
> >>
> >> If I go about it the obvious way (in split view) and enter balancing
> >> amounts then it all works.
> >>
> >> However, I'm still on 2.6.21 ...
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> gnucash-user mailing list
> >> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> >> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> >> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> >> -----
> >> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> >> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> >>
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>


-- 
David Carlson