Fred, Not early in the guide, but in the section dealing with multiple currencies https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html and discussed on the wiki (https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Trading_Accounts).
I don't think anyone has yet written anything about any application to trading stocks and I don't think they are intended to be applied there. It is recommended to read the guide and help manual fully before using GnuCash. I didn't, like many other users, but I did have a general accounting background coming in. You will find a lot of discussion in the mailing list archives re stock trading and unrealized gains and losses.. If they were mentioned earlier it is likely they would confuse new users with limited experience of double entry accounting and accounting practice. It is a compromise to get new users in the door. Trading counts are about providing information in the accounts for unrealized gains and losses involving currency transactions. It is not normal accounting practice to recognize unrealized gains or losses in the books as income/expenses and the circumstances under which they may be recognized in some jurisdictions are likely to be highly variable. They are not normally taxable until the gains are actually realized in the majority of jurisdictions. That is why they aren't a default option. I wouldn't think there is any need to redo past transactions unless the information re unrealized gains and losses through currency exchange transactions is necessary for some specific reporting process. David Cousens On Tue, 2022-07-26 at 18:46 -0400, Fred Tydeman wrote: > Over the past several months, I have been importing Quicken data into > GnuCash. There is about 6 years of data and lots of transactions. Besides > normal income and expenses, that data involved many different stocks and > many different currencies. Recently, I saw a reference to "Trading" > accounts. I have now enabled that feature. Based on reading > https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial, I believe that > my old transactions that involve currencies (and maybe stocks and other > assets whose value varies) were done wrong. > > Do I need to redo old transactions involving currencies? > Do I need to redo old transactions involving stocks? > Do I need to redo old transactions involving any assets whose price > varies? This probably depends upon the asset, eg. no for Real Estate. > > Is there an easy way to fix the mess I have created? > > Aside: I do not recall any mention of trading accounts in the Tutorial > early on when it talked about setting up the Chart of Accounts. > > What is the reason that Trading accounts are not turned on by default? > _______________________________________________ > 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.
