[GNC] Way to make the "Realized Gain/Loss" row show BELOW the "Sell" row?

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Hello, G.W., welcome to GnuCash!

On 2025-03-12 05:16, G.W. via gnucash-user wrote:
> When using lots to record selling shares from a specific lot in my brokerage account, I am commonly seeing this layout problem in gnucash where the Realized Gain/Loss row appears above the "Sell" row:
>
>  From within "stock" account's register:
> 2025-03-01 | Buy                | Roth IRA | 10 shares
> 2025-03-10 | Realized Gain/Loss | Income:Capital Gain
> 2025-03-10 | Sell               | Roth IRA | -9 shares
>
> How do I get the row with description "Realized Gain/Loss" to appear BELOW the "Sell" row? The gain I realized is from selling (not buying). Yet the row arrangement makes it seem like the realized gain/loss followed the buy.

If I understand correctly, what you are showing is an excerpt from the 
brokerage account's stock register, showing two transactions. One 
transaction was on 20225-03-01, and shows one split.  The other 
transaction was on 2025-03-10, and shows two splits. From GnuCash's 
point of view, each transaction represents value flows which happen 
simultaneously.

If you regard the splits of a transaction being simultaneous value 
flows, and if they have to be displayed one after another instead of all 
on top of each other, then having one split listed after another (within 
the same transaction) does not imply that one value flow happened after 
another.

GnuCash has a standard order which it uses to display splits within a 
transaction in a register. I am not sure of the what the standard is, 
but I believe it has to do with keeping the splits with debit amounts 
together, and splits with credit amounts together. Within that, GnuCash 
might sort by full account path. And, I am not aware of any way to 
change this standard order.

So, it might be easier to change your interpretation of the register 
display to think of transactions as simultaneous, rather than sequential 
and causally-related value flows, than it would be to change the order 
in which GnuCash displays the splits in a transaction.

Best regards,
      —Jim DeLaHunt