On 2026-06-10 13:36, Clint Chaplin wrote: > I have a 401(k) at Fidelity, and periodically an administrative fee or > bookkeeping fee is taken from the accounts. The funds for the fees are > raised by selling off microscopic amounts of the mutual funds the 401(k) is > invested in. I do understand that those sales are not considered > "disbursements" by the IRS, so no tax implications there. Also, the cash > that is raised by the sales I record as an expense, just to keep track of > it. > > The really fun part comes when I scrub the accounts and the "Orphaned > Gains" are generated, which seem to represent the "realized gains/loss" of > the microscopic amount of mutual funds that were sold. What the heck do I > do with them? They are not cash income in the sense that I would think of > it, but they don't seem to be equity, either. > > And, if that seems easy to you (it isn't to me), every so often Fidelity > will take some microscopic amount of cash from one of the 401(k) accounts, > but not sell any of the mutual fund to cover the expense. (we're talking > amounts up to $0.05). Fidelity seems to have conjured the cash out of > nothing, but I still would like to record it: the expense account to use > seems pretty obvious to me, but what "income" account should I use? > "Magic"?
My advice is, "stop wanting that". I used to try to make my records match Vanguard's, but it's impossible. In any trade, the order status and the next day's confirmation always differ from each other by a few cents, and the amount on the monthly statement may be different from both. Instead of making myself crazy, I decided to ignore those small amounts, because they are swamped by the actual values of the trades, not to mention unrealized gains or losses. So I don't record those tiny fees at all, but at the end of each quarter I adjust my account balanced in GC to match Vanguard's statement, with the other split going to Unrealized Gains and Losses. In essence, I bury the discrepancies in Unrealized Gains and Losses. I don't have inside knowledge, but I suspect that Vanguard is using some legacy software that (incorrectly) holds account values as floating point. Here's an actual example, of which I have a screenshot: when it shows holdings in my three accounts, which individually are $XXX.17, $YYY.39, and $ZZZ.49, the total it shows is not $something.05, as you might expect, but $something.08. From your description, perhaps Fidelity is similar. In any case, my opinion is that when their computer can't do accurate arithmetic down to the penny, no mater how much time you spend you're not going to be able to reconcile to what is essentially a random number, so you may as well not even try. Stan Brown Tehachapi, CA, USA https://BrownMath.com _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] 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.
