[GNC] Stock transaction: how to record "buy amount" being more or less than product of "shares * price"?

[David Reiser]

In terms of math, you only have 2 degrees of freedom, and you’re trying to specify 3 parameters independently. Not permissible. 

You paid a certain number of dollars and cents for a specific number of shares. The price per share that you actually paid is $/shares acquired (or sold). The broker can tell you anything they want as far as price per share, but in reality the price per share you actually paid was the dollars you paid divided by the shares transferred. There are both fees and round-off events associated with stock transactions. The mismatch between stated prices and real prices are magnified for fractional share transactions.
--
Dave Reiser
dbreiser at icloud.com





> On Mar 12, 2025, at 10:25, G.W. via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> Can you advise if I have a setting error?
> 
> For example,
> I sell -0.005 shares at $115 for $0.58 and this keeps resulting in price $116 with sell amount of $0.58 (actual is price $115 and sell amount precisely come to $0.575). Why isn't gnucash keeping the price of $115 and just rounding up the amount of $0.575?
> 
> In the Security Editor I have set Fraction Traded 1/1000
> In the account editor I have "Smallest Fraction" set to 1/1000
> 
> Is there some setting I'm missing? Why can't gnucash get the example above correct?
> 
> On Wednesday, March 12th, 2025 at 10:11 AM, Murugan Mariappan <m.muruganandam at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> If you are particular about the price to be the same then you can do split of the .04 and pass it to a "rounding off" expenses account
>> 
>> Saludos Cordiales
>> 
>> Murugan
>> 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> From: G.W. <grgwmsm at protonmail.com>
>> Sent: 12 March 2025 10:14
>> To: Murugan Mariappan <m.muruganandam at hotmail.com>
>> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>> Subject: Re: [GNC] Stock transaction: how to record "buy amount" being more or less than product of "shares * price"?
>> 
>> So there's no way to have the price reflect accurately in the price column for this scenario? (I already have set 1/1000).
>> 
>> On Wednesday, March 12th, 2025 at 8:56 AM, Murugan Mariappan <m.muruganandam at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Check the fraction traded field in your security and adjust it to 1/1000. Ensure your account uses the commodity value under the smallest fraction field. Enter the debit value as $1.04; the system will calculate the price as $130 due to rounding. Your bank should update correctly with the $1.04.
>>> 
>>> Saludos Cordiales
>>> 
>>> Murugan
>>> 
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+m.muruganandam=hotmail.com at gnucash.org> on behalf of G.W. via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>> Sent: 12 March 2025 08:50
>>> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>> Subject: [GNC] Stock transaction: how to record "buy amount" being more or less than product of "shares * price"?
>>> 
>>> My investment firm (Fidelity) allows the buying of fractional shares. I purchased some shares of stock with the following details:
>>> 
>>> Purchase-1: shares: 0.008 | price per share: $124.42 | total amount I paid to get the 0.008 shares = $1.04
>>> 
>>> Purchase-2: shares: 10 shares | price per share: $111.25 | total amount I paid to get the 10 shares = $1,112.45
>>> 
>>> As you can compute by doing the math, the total amount paid does NOT equal shares*price. Purchase-1 should have only costed $1 and Purchase-2 should have costed $1,112.50.
>>> 
>>> How do I account for this in Gnucash because it will not let me input the actual money I spent on the shares. Is there a way to override Gnucash's automatic calculation?
>>> 
>>> (I phoned Fidelity and they explained this discrepancy is normal, a result of fractional share buys).
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