[GNC] GnuCash_user: rounding errors and significant digits

[john]

> On Oct 7, 2023, at 09:54, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> The books are out of balance when either the “Computing cost of goods sold” calculations or the “Average Cost price source” differ from the “the trial balance report” calculations. Both of these are more major points. Is our concern here about a relatively major point or about a relatively minor point?

Since you're the only one who's concerned only you can answer that question, but you misunderstood "Average Cost price source" with respect to the Trial Balance report: Average Cost is one of four price sources available when running reports. It's the one that's computed from actual transactions so it's the one you *must* use when running the Trial Balance report.

Note as well that GnuCash has no support for cost accounting, so users who need to compute CoGS are better served with a proper ERP program like Odoo that does.

> We mentioned that on a certain day, Jeff entered the number of shares he purchased (1,377.41) and the price per share he paid (10.89). GnuCash calculated the Value of the transaction.
> 

Jeff did it wrong. Jeff should enter the number of shares and the amount paid and let GnuCash calculate the price, because the price per share he paid wasn't 10.89, it was 137741/1500000. 137741 is the product of two primes, 181 and 761, so 137741/1500000 *cannot* be exactly represented as a decimal. It's simpler to enter the amount and value than to enter an exact price.

Regards,
John Ralls