I'm with Stan. I stopped all individual investment tracking for these types of brokerage accounts. Of course, if YOU get info from it that you actually USE, then by all means, go ahead. all the individual investment info is available when i want it on the brokerage statements or elsewhere. Life is too short, but YMMV
On Wed, Jun 10, 2026 at 5:34 PM Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) < [email protected]> wrote: > 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. > _______________________________________________ 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.
