On May 23, 2010, at 3:45 PM, Thierry Daucourt wrote:
> The balance does not balance to zero, and I do not understand why. I can not
> get the point of adding the "Equity:Capital Gains", on top of "Income:Capital
> Gains". Why both exists?
It exists because according to the rules of double-entry accounting, money
cannot "come from nowhere". You just made $300 on a stock transaction; this
$300 has to be balanced with an identical amount affecting another account.
I use Equity for this purpose since it reflects the fact that the value came
from your equity: or assets which you already owned whose value had not been
realized as a gain.
> I have read again chapter "3.5 Understanding Equity" in ledger v2.6
> documentation, but I can not figure out why in the example of test92.ledger
> my Equity should be $-50.
It is important to note that the only report which is guaranteed to balance
to zero in all cases is the -B report:
$ ledger -B bal
$320 Assets:Broker
$-50 Equity
$300 Capital Gains
$-350 Opening Balances
$30 Expense:Broker:Commissions
$-300 Income:Capital Gains
--------------------
0
It makes more sense to see what's going on in the register report:
$ ledger -B --columns=70 reg
98-Jan-01 Account opening Assets:Broker $350 $350
..pening Balances $-350 0
98-May-05 Buy AAPL Assets:Broker $300 $300
Ex:Br:Commissions $15 $315
Assets:Broker $-315 0
99-Aug-16 Sell AAPL Assets:Broker $585 $585
Ex:Br:Commissions $15 $600
Assets:Broker $-600 0
In:Capital Gains $-300 $-300
Eq:Capital Gains $300 0
If Income:Capital Gains were not balanced into Equity:Capital Gains, then
*this* report would not balance to zero, which is _always must_.
> Another point about non english speaking users: I've translated the
> test91.ledger into French. Actually "Equity:Capital Gain" does not sound
> French and translation should be "Capitaux propres:Bénéfice". I would propose
> to add an option to .ledgerrc, something like "Equity:Capital gain=Capitaux
> propres:Bénéfice"
Ledger uses gettext, which allows for all English text within it to be
translated for a specific locale. When I get closer to final release,
would you be willing to translate a PO file into French for me? It will
include strings such as this one.
John
