[GNC] Changing from one year to the next

[R Losey]

Well, it's not so much a tool as a column option (speaking of "Period
(Total)"). It would be nice to know what's causing this, but it just isn't
that critical.

Remember that the period re-started on 01 Jan, so we're only talking about
a few transactions. After writing the longish note below, I did a little
more digging, and I'm more puzzled. Since 01 Jan, there have been four
transactions: A dividend, and three other transactions. I think that only
holdings with transactions this year should change the brokerage balance.
All transactions were done at the highest value of the holdings. Thus, I
don't understand why the overall brokerage has such a huge hit. I was
thinking of perhaps if there was a stock split item and it didn't account
for that, and thus, it looked like a huge loss... but not on the
year-to-date changes.


On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 7:05 AM Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net> wrote:

> It is more of an opportunity to learn what the tool is doing which IMHO
> should be understood if you are going to use it. You don’t want to put your
> hand in a lawn mower blades when they are spinning, right?
>
>
>
> Did you also considered the transactions in the account itself as part of
> that total – possibly on a cash basis (like dividends paid or cash
> transferred in or out)? The total shown across the account is some of the
> account activities itself, plus all of sub-accounts activities underneath
> it rolled-up.
>
>
>
> *From:* R Losey <rlosey at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 20, 2026 11:46 PM
> *To:* David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* gnucash-user at gnucash.org; Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net>;
> Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <stan+gc at fastmail.fm>
> *Subject:* Re: [GNC] Changing from one year to the next
>
>
>
> 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
>


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