[GNC] Changing from one year to the next

Tue Jan 20 23:46:04 EST 2026

I think we're getting a little wrapped around the axle.

This discussion started when Stan told me about the "Total (Period)" column
that would shows year-to-date totals (I had noted that one reason I cleared
Income & Expense yearly is that I wanted to be able to look at year-to-date
totals in those categories).  Stan said that the new column would show the
same thing, and it does for most things -- bank accounts, cash, Income
accounts, Expense accounts, etc. Even individual investments appear to be
correct. However, the parent investment account is WAY off -- I assume that
this is due to something I'm doing and isn't a GnuCash bug.

I don't update prices, so GnuCash only gets price updates when I buy or
sell items in the account (which, of course, includes dividends that are
re-invested)

Having said that, as of 01 Jan this year, let's use the following example:
Ameritrade brokerage account with $5,000 in the sweep fund, and 100 shares
stock A - I received dividends on 31 Dec and the price was $50, so that
stock A was worth $5,000 on 01 Jan. We can assume that there are other
stocks, but as I understand "Total (Period)", it shouldn't matter for this
example. I trust that this is clear so far.

On 04 Jan, I sold a share of stock A for $55 and put the proceeds ($55)
into the sweep fund. So, the sweep fund now has $5,055 and I have 99 shares
of stock A @ $55 ($5445).

(Note that one could assume I purchased a share of stock A at $45 and get
similar numbers).

When I look at "Total (Period)", I see the Sweep Fund showing +55 and stock
A showing -1 STKA, which are both correct, but the Ameritrade brokerage
account shows a -$3,000 amount. I think it should be +500 ($55 from the
sale, and +$445 from the updated price of stock A)

As I understand the Year-to-date value in "Total (Period)", it shouldn't
matter how far out of date the stock value is... it should use the last
known value for the 01 Jan calculation, even if the value goes back to 01
Aug 2025. If I have made no changes in this year and have not updated
prices, then the Total (Period) should be zero. When I buy or sell
something, everything gets re-calculated based on current price. So, if I
have a lot of shares and the price has changed, even a small buy or sell
could dramatically affect the "Total (Period)", and I assume that this is
what happened.

I had merely commented that I was just surprised to see that the relatively
small changes that I made in the new year (buying and selling minor amounts
of a few stocks) had resulted in a relatively HUGE change in the brokerage
account year-to-date value -- especially because the new year is only a few
weeks old -- and, in fact, the transactions were done on 06 Jan, which is
only the third business day of the month (2nd, 5th, 6th)... there shouldn't
have been time for prices to charge that much from 01 Jan.

I repeat, my original comment was just an expression of surprise to Stan
that the brokerage value didn't seem to make sense; it was not a request to
this fine group to debug the problem, even if there is one.  If I get
concerned, I can enter all of the brokerage data and the last time the
price was updated and do my own calculation of change in value. But I'm not
concerned at this moment.

Thanks for reading this rather lengthy explanation.

On Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 10:00 PM David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think you would have to explain further how it is that you're
> determining that the number is off by that amount. Since you say you're not
> updating prices regularly, GnuCash will only show valuation at the last
> data point.
>
> How are you determining your benchmark numbers? Where exactly in GnuCash
> are you seeing wrong numbers (CoA, some report, etc.)? Are the share counts
> correct?
>
> I don't know your situation, but a change of 2% (which happened on Tuesday
> January 20th) would be off by $10,000 for holdings of $500,000. That's just
> in a day.
>
> David T.
>
>
>
> On January 21, 2026 6:21:34 AM GMT+05:30, R Losey <rlosey at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I didn't say it was a bug -- just that it is not working as expected... but
>> remember that this is for this year, and there stock price hasn't
>> fluctuated that much. If it showed a loss of $20 or so, okay, but $10000
>> since the start of the year?  It COULD be mere price fluctuation (but I
>> don't update prices -- they just get modified when there is a
>> buy/sell/dividend action). So... the value being down that much JUST SINCE
>> 01 Jan seems a little off.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 4:20 PM Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net> wrote:
>>
>> You seeing $10K difference is **NOT** result of this bug I mentioned –
>>> the bug doesn’t display erroneous value once another action is taken --
>>> like relaunching GNC.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The differential of $10K for Total (Period) is likely resulting from
>>> pricing fluctuation aggregated for all stock sub-accounts within period
>>> set; not just the one you sold. The pricing database stores one price per
>>> security per day which would also impact multiple accounts if that security
>>> is held in multiple accounts. The other possibility is that there is a
>>> chance that one of the security might have a wrong pricing value in the
>>> database that falls within the period being set that is getting used for
>>> the difference calculation.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* R Losey <rlosey at gmail.com>
>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 20, 2026 12:34 PM
>>> *To:* Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net>
>>> *Cc:* Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <stan+gc at fastmail.fm>;
>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>> *Subject:* Re: [GNC] Changing from one year to the next
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I added "Total (Period)" per Stan's information, and the Income, Expense,
>>> and Liabilities all seem to be working correctly. The Assets like bank and
>>> savings account also are correct (they are all in USD). The problem seems
>>> to be with the investment accounts, which have sub-accounts of stock with
>>> various prices; they don't seem to be totaling up correctly. As I don't run
>>> regular quote updates, so the price per share is only updated when there
>>> are transactions in that account. So, it might be related to the bug you
>>> mentioned, especially if it hasn't been fixe yet. I am running the current
>>> version of GnuCash (5.14).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Or maybe it's my understanding: If I sell 100 shares at $10/share (thus
>>> $1,000) of stock A last week and transfer the funds to my cash account, I
>>> expect that the total for the period should be zero, with Stock A losing
>>> 100 shares at $10/share, and the cash fund increasing $1,000. The Total
>>> (Period) shows the decrease of 10 shares, and the increase of $1,000 in the
>>> cash account, but the total for the period shows something like down
>>> $10,000.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 5:42 AM Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I recall a bug/feature in 4.x version where if you changed the accounting
>>> period the COA totals would not reflect new period totals until after
>>> another action is taken -- like update quotes. Also remember that there are
>>> multiple total types (Total, Total(Period), Total (USD) , etc.) in COA so
>>> selecting correct one is also necessary.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <stan+gc at fastmail.fm>
>>> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2026 8:30 PM
>>> To: R Losey <rlosey at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>> Subject: Re: [GNC] Changing from one year to the next
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 12:41 PM Stan Brown (using GC 4.14)
>>>> <stan+gc at fastmail.fm <mailto:stan%2Bgc at fastmail.fm <stan%2Bgc at fastmail.fm>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     On 2026-01-19 10:18, R Losey wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There is a end-of-year closeout in which income and expense
>>>>>
>>>> accounts are
>>>>
>>>>> zeroed (by rolling them into Equity). This is not necessary to do
>>>>>
>>>> for
>>>
>>>> GnuCash to work, but some people like doing it (I am one that does
>>>>>
>>>> - it
>>>>
>>>>> makes Income and Expense account totals reflect only the current
>>>>>
>>>> year).
>>>>
>>>> Like you, I zero out income and expense accounts every year. But it's
>>>> not necessary to do that to see the totals for the current year.
>>>>
>>> That's
>>>
>>>> always possible on the Accounts pane, assuming you've set your
>>>> accounting period to start and end with the start and end of this
>>>>
>>> year.
>>>
>>>> (That's in Edit » Preferences » Accounting Period.)
>>>>
>>>> To show the current period income and expenses in the Accounts pane,
>>>> clock the triangle at the extreme right of the headings and tick
>>>>
>>> "Total
>>>
>>>> (Period)".
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2026-01-19 13:02, R Losey wrote:
>>>
>>> True, Stan. I do have it set for current year, and that does work for
>>>> income/expense... but not for categories under Assets or Liabilities.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Are you sure about that? It sure looks to me like Asset and Liability
>>> accounts show the amount of change, positive or negative, in the account
>>> during the current period, just as for Income and Expense accounts. That
>>> equivalence is less obvious, of course, if Income and Expense accounts
>>> start each year at zero.
>>>
>>> For instance, my liability to Wells Fargo was $1073.77 on 2025-12-31 and
>>> will be $724.90 on 2026-01-26. That is a reduction of $348.87, and
>>> Total(Period) shows $(348.87), just as I would expect.
>>>
>>> Stan Brown
>>> Tehachapi, CA, USA
>>> https://BrownMath.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ------------------------------
>>> Richard Losey
>>> rlosey at gmail.com
>>> Micah 6:8
>>>
>>>
>>
>>

-- 
_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com
Micah 6:8