Investments are always assets otherwise they are not investments. You retain ownership and expect a return from that ownership either in the form of dividends or capital gains. Stocks are investments and hence Assets.
A bank type account is a sub-type of asset accounts i as Christopher pointed out. Having the subtype allows certain procedures which are unique to bank account and not other assets to be implemented in Gnucash and work correctly. Brokerage accounts act like bank accounts which is why they are of the subtype. Equity is a measure of your net worth and in double entry accounting it is maintained automatically the transaction recording process as expressed in a rearrangement of what is called the accounting equation which all transactions in double entry accounting must comply with. Equity + (Income - Expenses) = Assets - Liabilities = Current net worth. Normally the only time you make transactions to equity are when you create a new book where you have existing assets and liabilities with balance values carried forward from your previous books (or just their existing values if you have not accounted for them previously) or when you close the temporary equity account (Income and Expenses) to Equity during a closing procedure. In business accounting payment of taxes is often recorded as a transaction between a bank asset account and a temporary Summary Profit/Loss Account in Equity which is then generally closed to a permanent Equity account. GnuCash does not require a formal closing of these accounts to Equity as described above for report generation, but the procedure exists and can be performed if it is required by legislation in your jurisdiction (some do still). ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html _______________________________________________ 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.
