[GNC] Realized and unrealized gains added together on balance sheet.

[David T.]

Robert,

I'm not certain, but I think your problem lies in the way you entered the original asset. I think you needed to value the shares at their basis value, not the value on the date you entered them. Using the NAV on the entry date misvalues the basis of those shares, and when you enter the gain of the subsequent sale, you're crossing things up. 

I am assuming you know the basis of the original holdings, since you say you manually calculated the gain on the sale. Therefore, you should be able to accurately adjust the cost on the original entry of record, which will of necessity change the price of those shares. (For the record, if I have to change shares and/or value of a transaction, I clear the price column and let GnuCash recalculate the price. It saves having to agree with the program to reset the price). Once the basis is corrected, then you can see whether the gains appear more sane. 

David T. 

On June 21, 2026 10:50:25 PM GMT+05:30, Robert Johnson <ajohnvoyager at gmail.com> wrote:
>RE: Gnucash combines both capital gains (realized) and unrealized gains into Unrealized Loss/Gain on the balance sheet and the Advance Portfolio  
>
>Have been using Gnucash for the past six months with quite a bit of ease. However, I have a problem that I just can’t solve after following the gnucash documentation regarding investments. 
>
>I have entered a mutual fund acquired over the past thirty years but following chapter 9.5.1 (Investments) for Entering Preexisting Shares. There are numerous lots both recorded and unrecorded by the brokerage, therefore I entered the present number of shares at the NAV price at the time of entry into Gnucash.  Using the formal accounting labels, I debit (Buy) the Asset: Investment:Mutual fund account and credit (Sell) the Equity:opening balance.  The very last unlabeled column recapitulates the number of shares entered. So far so good. 
>
>Following the section  9.7.1.2. Separate the Capital Gain/Loss Transaction from the Sale Transaction with figure  9.21. Selling Shares for Gain Where the Sale and Gain are Recorded in Separate Transactions, in Transaction Journal View, I then redeem a portion of the mutual fund with a capital gain that cannot be calculated from prior lots from thirty years ago as they are not reported by the brokerage firm. I therefore manually calculate the gain from what I know of the early purchases. It is an estimate, but very close. 
>
>I therefore enter the redemption by  debiting(Buy) the personal checking account with the net proceeds of the sale and crediting (Sell) the Investment:Mutual fund account with the number of shares sold at the price sold which exactly calculates the dollar value of the sale which was debited to the checking account.  I think so far so good. 
>
>I then enter another line, and label it Capital Gain.  The capital gain amount is then entered as a debit to the Investment:Mutual fund account and credited to the Income:Capital Gains account. 
>
>I then run the balance sheet and it records the Unrealized Loss as a combination of the capital gain and the true unrealized loss.  Herein lies my question: what did I do wrong that gnucash is combining the true capital gain with the true unrealized loss/gain (representing the change on paper of the original preexisting entry of mutual fund value from the daily change). 
>
>I’m sure this question has been asked by others, but I can’t find it in the archive.  Thank you for your thoughts. 
>
> 
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