Charles, Welcome to Gnucash and the Gnucash-user mail list.
You are generally on the right track. If you follow the examples in the Tutorial you will see that your brokerage account should not be a placeholder type because it will be the conduit for funds in and out of investment s. Also, there is no need for a stock placeholder. It is best to commingle lots within a security account for each symbol, so lots can be combined or split as required. There is feature in Gnucash called Lots which is supposed to automate lot tracking, but it assumes FIFO method, and historically has been buggy, so I don't use it. I track lots manually by assigning lot numbers in the notes field of each purchase and sale transaction. In closing transactions it is a little tricky converting unrealized gains and losses to realized as there is no explicit tracking of cost basis. There are different opinions on the best way to do that. Have fun and ask more questions when you need to. On Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 1:20 PM Charles Hudson <clh...@gmail.com> wrote: > First post: Greetings to all and thanks for your help. Because I have > never used GNUCASH before, am unfamiliar with its reporting capabilities > and am only conversant with basic accounting principles, I have a couple of > questions about how to set up the chart of accounts. Briefly: > > I want to track investments with some granularity. For example, if I buy > the same stock more than once - at different times and perhaps at different > prices - I will need to account for these differences when I sell. So it > seems to me that the hierarchy under Assets would be: > > Investments (placeholder) > > Brokerage firm account (placeholder) > > Stocks (placeholder) > > Individual security, e.g. "XOM" (also a placeholder) > > Group or "lot" of stocks against which > transactions are recorded > > So if I buy XOM at 50 in March and XOM at 60 in August and sell both lots > at 70 in October I have two lots, one with a short term capital gain of 10 > per share and one with long-term capital gain of 20 per share. > > Does this make sense or am I looking at it wrong? > > Thanks for your replies. > > < > http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail > > > Virus-free. > www.avg.com > < > http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail > > > <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
