Re: [GNC] Exchange Rate to Price Database issue with low transactions amounts

[John Ralls]

Bo,

I tried your example file and CSV import today and found that I could reproduce 
the incorrect rounding behavior in 5.9 but not in 5.10. I did a bisect (a 
binary search through the commits, building and testing at each stop) to locate 
exactly what commit fixed it. It was 
https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/2036 and the fix was completely 
accidental. Even in retrospect I can’t explain why the rounding was wrong 
before that change and is correct after it. I did double-check by reverting it 
on current stable and observing that the bad rounding reappears.

So upgrade to 5.10 and you’ll be able to import your CSV file.

Regards,
John Ralls


> On Feb 12, 2025, at 01:00, Bo Buckley  wrote:
> 
> Dear Jim,
> 
> Thank you for your reply. 
> 
>> After b), you enter an exchange rate in the Exchange Rate field, press tab 
>> to move focus out of that field. See if the exchange rate in the equation to 
>> the right updates with the Exchange Rate you supplied.
> 
> Yes, it updates as expected, but does not change the observed behavior after 
> pressing OK. 
> 
>> Another thing to try is to click the radio button by Debit Amount in the 
>> Transfer Funds dialogue, then in that field, enter a formula of > as a positive number> * 0.0066 . I expect Gnucash can calculate a USD debit 
>> amount and put it in that field.  If the amount is a whole number of 
>> dollars, that is further evidence of a bug.
> 
> Results for same test.csv import set:
> Date Description Transaction Amount DebitAmountGivenInTransferFundsDialog 
> ExchangeRateRecordedInPriceDatabase
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 20 270*0.0066 89/13500
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 110 175*0.0066 -29/4375
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 175 110*0.0066 -29/4375
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 270 20*0.0066 -0.0065
> 
> Note the header change from before as now I am entering the Debit amount and 
> not the Exchange Rate as requested. This is even more bizzare, but I wasn't 
> sure why you recommended using the positive JPY value so I tried with the 
> negative and got:
> 
> Date Description Transaction Amount DebitAmountGivenInTransferFundsDialog 
> ExchangeRateRecordedInPriceDatabase
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 20 -270*0.0066 89/13500
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 110 -175*0.0066 89/13500
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 175 -110*0.0066 89/13500
> 2025/01/29 Transfer Fee 270 -20*0.0066 0.0065
> 
> which looks more reasonable. Although this doesn't really work as a 
> workaround as the real-world scenario isn't all for transactions for a single 
> date (i.e. I'd have to manually look up the exchange rate for each date and 
> input it into this Debit field for every transaction, over an entire year of 
> transactions). That sounds about as efficient as pen and paper over GNUcash 
> :D, so I hope to avoid that if possible. 
> 
> Assuming I make a temporary JPY expense account duplicate for everything. Is 
> there an efficient way of pushing these back to a USD expense account after 
> this bug is resolved? Or would that just be pushing off the inevitable 
> requirement for manually typing out every transaction again?
> 
> Thanks again.
> 
> On Wed, Feb 12, 2025 at 7:33 AM Jim DeLaHunt  > wrote:
>> Bo:
>> 
>> On 2025-02-11 04:30, Bo Buckley wrote:
>> > Dear John,
>> >
>> > Thanks for your time again. I uploaded the video, test.gnucash and the 
>> > test.csv file used to import the example transactions to my Network 
>> > Accesible Storage. You should have public access here:
>> >
>> > https://gofile.me/7Ad2L/z8EsrYEzD
>> 
>> I was able to watch your "output.mp4" video. Good idea to post it! It 
>> was more informative than I expected.
>> 
>> I have three observations from watching the video:
>> 
>> 1. Your interaction appears to be: a) Transfer Funds dialogue appears, 
>> b) you type in an exchange rate of 0.0066, c) you press the OK button on 
>> the Transfer Funds dialogue.
>> 
>> 2. At the moment between b) and c), there is a difference between the 
>> value in the Exchange Rate field, and the equation just to its right. 
>> e.g. at 0'49" in the video, the Exchange Rate field reads "0.0066", and 
>> the equation reads "1 JPY = 0.009091 USD". This is an interesting 
>> contradiction. I would expect the value in the Exchange Rate field to 
>> replace the previous value in the equation.
>> 
>> 3. The result of importing the transactions e.g. at 0'56" in the video 
>> is that the charges to the Expenses:Bank Service Charge account are 
>> whole numbers of USD.  It as if the arithmetic did not realise that the 
>> minimum increment for USD is 0.01, and treated it as 1.
>> 
>> This might well be evidence of a bug in this part of GnuCash, I'm not 
>> sure. It is possible, for example, that when the CSV import kicks off a 
>> Transfer Funds dialogue for one transaction, it mistakenly labels the 
>> minimum increment of USD with the minimum increment for JPY.  For a lot 
>> of currencies, the minimum increment in both currencies will be the 
>> same, 0.01, so I can 

Re: [GNC] Trading Accounts Balance

[John Ralls]

Bo,

I don’t understand what you mean by “zero this out for today”.

The Totals column on the Accounts page presents the ending balance for each 
account (even if that’s in the future), converted to the book currency using 
the most recent exchange rate available from the account’s commodity to the 
book currency.

The manually created trading splits will look just like the automatically 
created ones. The difference will be that you have to create them yourself, 
selecting the taxable or non-taxable balance. Remember that the trading 
accounts are outside of the accounting equation and exist to help you keep 
track of your conversions into and out of commodities so that you book the 
gains and losses and keep your overall book in balance. The goal of splitting 
the trading accounts would be to make it clearer which trading gains income 
account—taxable or not-taxable—needs to be adjusted to balance your book. Mind 
that I’m not an accountant and even if I was I wouldn’t be *your* accountant. I 
also have no experience as an ex-pat paying US taxes on income earned in 
somebody else’s currency.

One other thing to be aware of: The register displays currency differently 
depending on whether trading accounts are enabled: When they’re enabled the 
debit and credit numbers represent the amount in the split’s account’s 
commodity; when trading accounts are off the credit and debit numbers are the 
values in the current register’s account’s currency. In other words with 
trading accounts off all of the amounts in your JapaneseChecking register will 
be JPY and in Banking Service Fees they’ll all be USD. 

Regards,
John Ralls


> On Feb 13, 2025, at 16:39, Bo Buckley  wrote:
> 
> Thank you for your reply John,
> 
> >If the net gains aren’t taxable then you can book them to a separate 
> >non-taxable income account. 
> 
> Even if I zero this out for today as an example, won't the Trading account 
> balance continue to fluctuate even after doing so as new price entries come 
> on day to day? I'm trying to understand how to finalize the transaction in 
> the same way I would wrap up a GOOG stock sale (i.e. I would never expect to 
> keep tracking unrealized gains/losses on the idea that the USD received from 
> the stock sale is waiting to be "sold" to return back to GOOG. 
> 
> >GnuCash also can’t automatically handle multiple trading accounts per 
> >commodity. If you need that you’ll have to turn off trading accounts in 
> >File>Properties and manage the trading accounts and splits manually.
> 
> Assuming I turn it off, do you have an example transaction to help me 
> understand what you're proposing here? I'm not sure I understand what this 
> would solve. 
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 02:37 John Ralls  > wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > On Feb 13, 2025, at 01:19, Bo Buckley > > > wrote:
>> > 
>> > In the foreign currency docs:
>> > https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html
>> > 
>> > The Trading and CURRENCY placeholder accounts now indicate a modest
>> >> realized loss of 0.82 USD on the currency transactions.
>> > 
>> > 
>> > it appears to explain that the Trading top-most account balance represents
>> > a loss if positive or a gain if negative. I only have a single transaction
>> > so far that involves converting USD to JPY for a transfer. See attached for
>> > the transaction. The Trading account already shows a balance of 247.38 USD.
>> > How does this make sense? I didn't lose money on the transfer (other than
>> > the fee). It appears this balance is calculated based on the most recent
>> > Price Database entry for the currency (i.e. JPY at 0.0066 for 02/09/2025). 
>> > :
>> > 4,964.32 - (714,688* 0.0066) = 247.38.
>> > 
>> > It seems to be interpreting a currency exchange from 1/9/2024 as a loss
>> > even though at the time of the trade it was not a loss. How am I to
>> > interpret this and what is this Trading Balance used for elsewhere? I don't
>> > want it unintentionally affecting some other report calculations.
>> > 
>> > For the sake of clarification, lets compare this behavior to stock trading.
>> > USD and JPY are two commodities, just like USD and GOOG. For my example
>> > transfer from USD to JPY, the Trading Account balance loss seems to be
>> > similar to an unrealized loss if I interpret the transfer transaction as
>> > buying JPY from USD with the intent to someday convert back to USD. This is
>> > similar to buying GOOG from USD and if GOOG dropped in values since buying.
>> > But why is it not interpreted the opposite way, i.e. I sold USD to get back
>> > JPY (or I sold GOOG to get back JPY for the stock analogy)? I want to make
>> > sure GNUcash is not unknowingly treating the correct transactions as
>> > taxable events and not the opposite. I.e. for Japanese tax reporting the
>> > transfer would represent a taxable event as I "sold USD". The opposite
>> > would be true for US tax rep

[GNC] version 5.10 - how to adjust fonts/ font size?

[Gerry Starnes via gnucash-user]

The fonts or font size is so small that they are difficult to read. I can’t 
find any way to adjust them or the kerning so I don’t need readers and an 
occasional magnifying glass. 

Any suggestions as to where I should make font or font size adjustments?


 
Gerry Starnes
gstar...@me.com


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[GNC] Need help locating transaction(s) in advance portfolio

[Kalpesh Patel]

I am running Advance Portfolio report and I noticed it display following
error message at the top:

 

There is an error processing the transaction 'buying . share units'.
This may to be caused by a sell transaction causing a negative stock
balance, and a subsequent buy transaction causing a zero balance. This leads
to a division-by-zero error. It can be fixed by preventing negative stock
balances.

   

I was hoping to track down this (these) transaction(s) which are in errors.
I don't remember doing this for an account but I have not founds how to
locate these specific transactions. Any idea how to go about finding it? Is
the value error referring to one specific transaction? I am hoping to avoid
going through each and every investment account manually which I don't even
know how to do that given that the value given in the error message could
possibly be from variable number of additions and subtractions in an
account.

 

Any help is welcome. Thanks.

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Re: [GNC] Need help locating transaction(s) in advance portfolio

[Geoff]

Hi Kalpesh

I had a similar problem a long time ago and have forgotten exactly how I 
fixed it }:--((


To find the account, do a divide and conquer on the accounts included in 
the report until you find the one that triggers the error.  Then do the 
same with the Report Date to find the data of the offending transaction.


Hopefully, when you see the transaction, you can figure out how to fix 
it.  From memory I deleted it and re-added it.


Hope this helps.

Regards

Geoff
=


On 14/02/2025 1:46 pm, Kalpesh Patel wrote:

I am running Advance Portfolio report and I noticed it display following
error message at the top:

  


There is an error processing the transaction 'buying . share units'.
This may to be caused by a sell transaction causing a negative stock
balance, and a subsequent buy transaction causing a zero balance. This leads
to a division-by-zero error. It can be fixed by preventing negative stock
balances.




I was hoping to track down this (these) transaction(s) which are in errors.
I don't remember doing this for an account but I have not founds how to
locate these specific transactions. Any idea how to go about finding it? Is
the value error referring to one specific transaction? I am hoping to avoid
going through each and every investment account manually which I don't even
know how to do that given that the value given in the error message could
possibly be from variable number of additions and subtractions in an
account.

  


Any help is welcome. Thanks.

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[GNC] Trading Accounts Balance

[Bo Buckley]

In the foreign currency docs:
https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html

The Trading and CURRENCY placeholder accounts now indicate a modest
> realized loss of 0.82 USD on the currency transactions.


it appears to explain that the Trading top-most account balance represents
a loss if positive or a gain if negative. I only have a single transaction
so far that involves converting USD to JPY for a transfer. See attached for
the transaction. The Trading account already shows a balance of 247.38 USD.
How does this make sense? I didn't lose money on the transfer (other than
the fee). It appears this balance is calculated based on the most recent
Price Database entry for the currency (i.e. JPY at 0.0066 for 02/09/2025). :
4,964.32 - (714,688* 0.0066) = 247.38.

It seems to be interpreting a currency exchange from 1/9/2024 as a loss
even though at the time of the trade it was not a loss. How am I to
interpret this and what is this Trading Balance used for elsewhere? I don't
want it unintentionally affecting some other report calculations.

For the sake of clarification, lets compare this behavior to stock trading.
USD and JPY are two commodities, just like USD and GOOG. For my example
transfer from USD to JPY, the Trading Account balance loss seems to be
similar to an unrealized loss if I interpret the transfer transaction as
buying JPY from USD with the intent to someday convert back to USD. This is
similar to buying GOOG from USD and if GOOG dropped in values since buying.
But why is it not interpreted the opposite way, i.e. I sold USD to get back
JPY (or I sold GOOG to get back JPY for the stock analogy)? I want to make
sure GNUcash is not unknowingly treating the correct transactions as
taxable events and not the opposite. I.e. for Japanese tax reporting the
transfer would represent a taxable event as I "sold USD". The opposite
would be true for US tax reporting no? I want to make sure I understand the
implications of this balance.

Thanks in advance.
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Re: [GNC] Help!

[Derek Atkins]

Sounds like you're creating your O-B txn as a Debit AND Credit to your
Checking account.  Don't do that.  It's supposed to be a transaction
between your Checking Account and Equity:Opening Balances

-derek

On Thu, February 13, 2025 12:35 am, Gaya Erlandson wrote:
> I put in all the info - every transaction, for the entire tax year 2024
> into GnuCash on my Mac and thought all was well. Then I saw that the
> "Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0 and then
> spent the last 2+ hours trying to figure out how to add the opening
> balance. I've even been consulting ChatGPT - to no avail. No matter how I
> manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking account, it
> automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and I'm
> back to 0 again - literally.
>
> I sure would appreciate some help - especially via a phone call. I'm in
> the
> Asheville area of North Carolina which is in the NY time zone. Could
> someone contact me between the hours of 9am - 9pm, Eastern Standard Time?
>
> Kind regards,
> Gaya
>
> Gaya Erlandson, PhD
> Certified Imago Relationship Therapist
> Consultant for Collaborative Community
> 828-581-9036
>
> *Whatever the Problem, Community is the Answer ~**Meg Wheatly*
> ___
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-- 
   Derek Atkins 617-623-3745
   de...@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com
   Computer and Internet Security Consultant

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Re: [GNC] Trading Accounts Balance

[John Ralls]

> On Feb 13, 2025, at 01:19, Bo Buckley  wrote:
> 
> In the foreign currency docs:
> https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html
> 
> The Trading and CURRENCY placeholder accounts now indicate a modest
>> realized loss of 0.82 USD on the currency transactions.
> 
> 
> it appears to explain that the Trading top-most account balance represents
> a loss if positive or a gain if negative. I only have a single transaction
> so far that involves converting USD to JPY for a transfer. See attached for
> the transaction. The Trading account already shows a balance of 247.38 USD.
> How does this make sense? I didn't lose money on the transfer (other than
> the fee). It appears this balance is calculated based on the most recent
> Price Database entry for the currency (i.e. JPY at 0.0066 for 02/09/2025). :
> 4,964.32 - (714,688* 0.0066) = 247.38.
> 
> It seems to be interpreting a currency exchange from 1/9/2024 as a loss
> even though at the time of the trade it was not a loss. How am I to
> interpret this and what is this Trading Balance used for elsewhere? I don't
> want it unintentionally affecting some other report calculations.
> 
> For the sake of clarification, lets compare this behavior to stock trading.
> USD and JPY are two commodities, just like USD and GOOG. For my example
> transfer from USD to JPY, the Trading Account balance loss seems to be
> similar to an unrealized loss if I interpret the transfer transaction as
> buying JPY from USD with the intent to someday convert back to USD. This is
> similar to buying GOOG from USD and if GOOG dropped in values since buying.
> But why is it not interpreted the opposite way, i.e. I sold USD to get back
> JPY (or I sold GOOG to get back JPY for the stock analogy)? I want to make
> sure GNUcash is not unknowingly treating the correct transactions as
> taxable events and not the opposite. I.e. for Japanese tax reporting the
> transfer would represent a taxable event as I "sold USD". The opposite
> would be true for US tax reporting no? I want to make sure I understand the
> implications of this balance.

Bo,

The Accounts page Total column does use the most recent price database entry to 
value each commodity that isn’t the book currency and that will make the 
trading accounts reflect an unrealized gain or loss. 

US GAAP and IAS require all foreign currency transactions to be valued at the 
time of the transaction in the book currency, and doing so inevitably creates 
trading gains an losses that must be accounted for to keep the books in 
balance. If the net gains aren’t taxable then you can book them to a separate 
non-taxable income account. Keep in mind that GnuCash has no way of helping you 
catch mistakes where you book a capital gain or loss to the wrong income ro 
expense account: It can only verify that the accounting equation balances for 
the whole book. GnuCash also can’t automatically handle multiple trading 
accounts per commodity. If you need that you’ll have to turn off trading 
accounts in File>Properties and manage the trading accounts and splits manually.

Regards,
John Ralls
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[GNC] Profit & Loss previous year

[Just Me via gnucash-user]

I just installed GNUcash.

Put done data in to test going back to 1st November 2024.

Balance sheet prints ok for 2024.

But when I try Profit &Loss, it only prints 2025.

There doesn't appear to be any date range, or previous year for P & L .

Any ideas ?




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Re: [GNC] Help!

[Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user]

On 2/13/2025 5:45 PM, Stephen M. Butler wrote:
I ignore the option to set the opening balance for each account. 
Instead I create a single transaction that has a massive amount of 
splits (one split for each account that needs an opening balance). 
Highly unlikely that all the credits will equal all the debits so the 
final split is to the Equity:Opening Balance account to make 
everything "balance". 


Uh --- If you do this from the Balance Sheet of CLOSED books then the 
sum of the debits WILL equal the sum of the credits.


If you are entering from other data (not the balance sheet of a closed 
set of books) then yes, you may have some equity "left over". You could 
make that account just Equity


Michael D Novack


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Re: [GNC] How to set opening balances? [was: Re: Help!]

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Hello, Gaya:

Welcome to GnuCash! I hope this list will help you set yourself right.

The first piece of advice on using this list: write a Subject: line 
which describes your objective.  The subject "Help!" tells me how you 
feel about your situation, but not what you are trying to accomplish. I 
have added a possibly more descriptive Subject: line.


On 2025-02-12 21:35, Gaya Erlandson wrote:

I put in all the info - every transaction, for the entire tax year 2024
into GnuCash on my Mac and thought all was well. Then I saw that the
"Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0 and then
spent the last 2+ hours trying to figure out how to add the opening
balance. I've even been consulting ChatGPT - to no avail. No matter how I
manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking account, it
automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and I'm
back to 0 again - literally.


This is helpful information.  A little more information will be even 
more helpful.


Also, please tell us a little more about what you are seeing:


I saw that the "Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0
In which GnuCash window or tab are you seeing this happen?  Is it 
perhaps the Accounts tab?


In your chart of accounts, what is the parent of your main checking 
account?  Is it Equity?  I would expect it to be Assets. See, as 
background, the GnuCash Tutorial and Guide, section 2.3.2. New Account 
Hierarchy Setup .



No matter how I
manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking account, ...
How exactly are you trying to type in the Opening Balance?  How does it 
compare to the example instructions in the GnuCash Tutorial and Guide, 
section 2.9.3.1. Simple Transaction Example?



...it automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and I'm
back to 0 again - literally.

That sounds frustrating!

What creates the "decrease"? Where does it appear? What does the 
resulting transaction look like?


If you enter a transaction with only one split, say to Equity:Opening 
Balances without a balancing split to Assets:MainCheckingAccount of the 
same number in the other column (e.g. Debit instead of Credit), I would 
expect GnuCash to create the balancing split of the same number, but to 
special accounts Imbalance or Orphan. If that is happening, I would 
suggest that you rethink what you are doing in term of double-entry 
accounting. What are the two entries you are trying to make?  The 
GnuCash Tutorial and Guide, section 2.1 Accounting Concepts, has a 
simple summary.


GnuCash is a very demanding application at first, because it depends on 
you to know the basics of double-entry accounting. There are other 
bookkeeping applications which shield the user from that requirement. 
GnuCash is not one of them.


I hope this helps,
  —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Help!

[David Cousens]

Gaya,

Following on from Derek's comment, GnuCash is a double entry accounting
system. What this means is that when you record an event in your
finances, a transaction that transaction will affect two or more
accounts. In simple transactions involving two accounts, there will be
a debit entry and a credit entry of equal value. For more complex
transactions the sum of the debit entries must be equal to the sum of
the credit entries in the record of the transaction in GnuCash.

Where you are recording the existing balances in your accounts e.g. a
check or savings account, the debit entry will be to the GnuCash
account recording your bank account and the credit entry will be to a
sub account under Equity, Opening Balances.

You can place a register displaying the transactions to a given account
in auto-split mode (View menu and check the Auto Split radio button or
Edit->Preferences-.Register Defaults and check the Auto-split button
here to set this as the default for all registers) in which the entries
to the different accounts for the selected transaction are displayed on
successive lines (usually with a light brown background) under the
highlighted selected transaction.

For info on GnuCash the official documentation is a good point to start
if you are new to GnuCash and/or double entry accounting.
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/index.html
https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=help

 The Tutorial and Concepts guide has an introductory session on double
entry accounting  and Ch5 of the manual discusses setting opening
balances from the new account dialogue when the account is created. If
not set at thecreation of the account, the  transaction entries can be
manually set from the account register for the account.

David Cousens

On Thu, 2025-02-13 at 00:35 -0500, Gaya Erlandson wrote:
> I put in all the info - every transaction, for the entire tax year
> 2024
> into GnuCash on my Mac and thought all was well. Then I saw that the
> "Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0 and
> then
> spent the last 2+ hours trying to figure out how to add the opening
> balance. I've even been consulting ChatGPT - to no avail. No matter
> how I
> manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking
> account, it
> automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and
> I'm
> back to 0 again - literally.
> 
> I sure would appreciate some help - especially via a phone call. I'm
> in the
> Asheville area of North Carolina which is in the NY time zone. Could
> someone contact me between the hours of 9am - 9pm, Eastern Standard
> Time?
> 
> Kind regards,
> Gaya
> 
> Gaya Erlandson, PhD
> Certified Imago Relationship Therapist
> Consultant for Collaborative Community
> 828-581-9036
> 
> *Whatever the Problem, Community is the Answer ~**Meg Wheatly*
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Re: [GNC] Help!

[Stephen M. Butler]

I ignore the option to set the opening balance for each account. Instead 
I create a single transaction that has a massive amount of splits (one 
split for each account that needs an opening balance). Highly unlikely 
that all the credits will equal all the debits so the final split is to 
the Equity:Opening Balance account to make everything "balance".


Sorry, I'm on the West Coast so 3 hours off from you.

Stephen M Butler
stephen.m.butle...@gmail.com
kg...@arrl.net
253-350-0166
---
GnuPG Fingerprint:  8A25 9726 D439 758D D846 E5D4 282A 5477 0385 81D8

On 2/12/25 21:35, Gaya Erlandson wrote:

I put in all the info - every transaction, for the entire tax year 2024
into GnuCash on my Mac and thought all was well. Then I saw that the
"Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0 and then
spent the last 2+ hours trying to figure out how to add the opening
balance. I've even been consulting ChatGPT - to no avail. No matter how I
manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking account, it
automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and I'm
back to 0 again - literally.

I sure would appreciate some help - especially via a phone call. I'm in the
Asheville area of North Carolina which is in the NY time zone. Could
someone contact me between the hours of 9am - 9pm, Eastern Standard Time?

Kind regards,
Gaya

Gaya Erlandson, PhD
Certified Imago Relationship Therapist
Consultant for Collaborative Community
828-581-9036

*Whatever the Problem, Community is the Answer ~**Meg Wheatly*
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Re: [GNC] Profit & Loss previous year

[Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user]

On 2/13/2025 1:09 PM, Just Me via gnucash-user wrote:

I just installed GNUcash.

Put done data in to test going back to 1st November 2024.
Balance sheet prints ok for 2024.

But when I try Profit &Loss, it only prints 2025.
There doesn't appear to be any date range, or previous year for P & L .
Any ideas ?


Gnucash reports are a bit different. You FIRST "run" the report and it 
will use default values or saved values and THEN you use Edit=>Report 
Options to set the values for this run < when you hit the buttons to 
apply, etc. the report will change > Now a P&L report is always for the 
range between two specific dates. So in that 2025 P&L use Edit=>Report 
Options=> General to specify the start and end dates you want.


Michael D Novack

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[GNC] Help!

[Gaya Erlandson]

I put in all the info - every transaction, for the entire tax year 2024
into GnuCash on my Mac and thought all was well. Then I saw that the
"Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0 and then
spent the last 2+ hours trying to figure out how to add the opening
balance. I've even been consulting ChatGPT - to no avail. No matter how I
manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking account, it
automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and I'm
back to 0 again - literally.

I sure would appreciate some help - especially via a phone call. I'm in the
Asheville area of North Carolina which is in the NY time zone. Could
someone contact me between the hours of 9am - 9pm, Eastern Standard Time?

Kind regards,
Gaya

Gaya Erlandson, PhD
Certified Imago Relationship Therapist
Consultant for Collaborative Community
828-581-9036

*Whatever the Problem, Community is the Answer ~**Meg Wheatly*
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Re: [GNC] Profit & Loss previous year

[Steve Butler]

Check the Options menu item.  All sorts of things you can change including
the From/Thru dates.

On Thu, Feb 13, 2025, 10:11 Just Me via gnucash-user <
gnucash-user@gnucash.org> wrote:

> I just installed GNUcash.
>
> Put done data in to test going back to 1st November 2024.
>
> Balance sheet prints ok for 2024.
>
> But when I try Profit &Loss, it only prints 2025.
>
> There doesn't appear to be any date range, or previous year for P & L .
>
> Any ideas ?
>
>
>
>
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Re: [GNC] Trading Accounts Balance

[Bo Buckley]

Thank you for your reply John,

>If the net gains aren’t taxable then you can book them to a separate
non-taxable income account.

Even if I zero this out for today as an example, won't the Trading account
balance continue to fluctuate even after doing so as new price entries come
on day to day? I'm trying to understand how to finalize the transaction in
the same way I would wrap up a GOOG stock sale (i.e. I would never expect
to keep tracking unrealized gains/losses on the idea that the USD received
from the stock sale is waiting to be "sold" to return back to GOOG.

>GnuCash also can’t automatically handle multiple trading accounts per
commodity. If you need that you’ll have to turn off trading accounts in
File>Properties and manage the trading accounts and splits manually.

Assuming I turn it off, do you have an example transaction to help me
understand what you're proposing here? I'm not sure I understand what this
would solve.

Thanks in advance.



On Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 02:37 John Ralls  wrote:

>
>
> > On Feb 13, 2025, at 01:19, Bo Buckley  wrote:
> >
> > In the foreign currency docs:
> > https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html
> >
> > The Trading and CURRENCY placeholder accounts now indicate a modest
> >> realized loss of 0.82 USD on the currency transactions.
> >
> >
> > it appears to explain that the Trading top-most account balance
> represents
> > a loss if positive or a gain if negative. I only have a single
> transaction
> > so far that involves converting USD to JPY for a transfer. See attached
> for
> > the transaction. The Trading account already shows a balance of 247.38
> USD.
> > How does this make sense? I didn't lose money on the transfer (other than
> > the fee). It appears this balance is calculated based on the most recent
> > Price Database entry for the currency (i.e. JPY at 0.0066 for
> 02/09/2025). :
> > 4,964.32 - (714,688* 0.0066) = 247.38.
> >
> > It seems to be interpreting a currency exchange from 1/9/2024 as a loss
> > even though at the time of the trade it was not a loss. How am I to
> > interpret this and what is this Trading Balance used for elsewhere? I
> don't
> > want it unintentionally affecting some other report calculations.
> >
> > For the sake of clarification, lets compare this behavior to stock
> trading.
> > USD and JPY are two commodities, just like USD and GOOG. For my example
> > transfer from USD to JPY, the Trading Account balance loss seems to be
> > similar to an unrealized loss if I interpret the transfer transaction as
> > buying JPY from USD with the intent to someday convert back to USD. This
> is
> > similar to buying GOOG from USD and if GOOG dropped in values since
> buying.
> > But why is it not interpreted the opposite way, i.e. I sold USD to get
> back
> > JPY (or I sold GOOG to get back JPY for the stock analogy)? I want to
> make
> > sure GNUcash is not unknowingly treating the correct transactions as
> > taxable events and not the opposite. I.e. for Japanese tax reporting the
> > transfer would represent a taxable event as I "sold USD". The opposite
> > would be true for US tax reporting no? I want to make sure I understand
> the
> > implications of this balance.
>
> Bo,
>
> The Accounts page Total column does use the most recent price database
> entry to value each commodity that isn’t the book currency and that will
> make the trading accounts reflect an unrealized gain or loss.
>
> US GAAP and IAS require all foreign currency transactions to be valued at
> the time of the transaction in the book currency, and doing so inevitably
> creates trading gains an losses that must be accounted for to keep the
> books in balance. If the net gains aren’t taxable then you can book them to
> a separate non-taxable income account. Keep in mind that GnuCash has no way
> of helping you catch mistakes where you book a capital gain or loss to the
> wrong income ro expense account: It can only verify that the accounting
> equation balances for the whole book. GnuCash also can’t automatically
> handle multiple trading accounts per commodity. If you need that you’ll
> have to turn off trading accounts in File>Properties and manage the trading
> accounts and splits manually.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
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