If I found something of value that was included in a past transaction, such as that nice William Woodard artwork in the attic, then I'd adjust the description of what was purchased as 1 house and a couple of paintings. Other than the memo, as appropriate, I would not make a journal entry to equity today. Following the historic costing principle, my equity position has not changed, as I have not sold or purchased anything today. If anything, I did not divide the purchase between the real estate and artwork, so my book value of the house is over-stated and my book value of the artwork is under-stated. Maybe I create an artwork account and divide the book value between the real estate and artwork. If we're a few accounting periods later, the adjustment could start to get complicated if there was depreciation expense, as the real estate depreciation expense was too high as it included the value of the artwork.
The above is all about historic costing. If I'm marking my property to market, which is probably difficult with houses and paintings, then, well, there would likely be some change in my equity upon today's entry of the value of the artwork. > On 11/10/2024 2:27 PM PST Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user > <gnucash-user@gnucash.org> wrote: > > You bought your house a few years ago, but until now, never got around > to clearing all of the junk out of the attic. Among that junk you find a > couple of paintings, and gee, William Woodard. So not a fortune, but you > are probably going to want to add an asset category "art" and put these > there at a reasonable estimate of what they might go for (and don't > forget to contact your property insurance carrier. > > Now this "find" is NOT income. The pictures became your property when > you bought the house and they had been left there (and so included). The > transaction where you enter their asset estimated value would have > equity as the other side. > > Michael D Novack _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
