Does this help?

FAQ - GnuCash <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_GnuCash_says_that_it_can.27t_obtain_the_lock_for_my_file._What_should_I_do.3F>

Or did something else happen?

Wm

On 2026-06-20 16:02, Maggi Andrews wrote:
As a new user I was dismayed when i was "locked" out of my main file. I
tried all the solution suggestions that google brought up with no luck. The
website seemed to be unavailable.  The manual was no help. I subscribed to
this group, as it was said to be the best place to get help. Eventually I
just wandered around looking at all the gnucash files (this particular
thread did not yet exist.) After reinstalling the program for the umpteenth
time, instead of trying to open a file through the program, I just accessed
the file directly.  Voila, success. No further problems.  Still don't
understand what caused the issue, just glad I can carry on. And yes, I do
regular backups to a separate hard drive.

from Maggi's cell phone

On Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 12:12 PM<[email protected]> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

    1. Re:  Logs and Backups (Kalpesh Patel)
    2.  Fw:  Logs and Backups (Ken Pyzik)
    3. Re:  GnuCash and USD tenths and mils (Clint Chaplin)
    4. Re:  Fw: Logs and Backups (Wm Tarr)
    5. Re:  GnuCash and USD tenths and mils (Clint Chaplin)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:17:07 -0400
From: "Kalpesh Patel"<[email protected]>
To:<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups
Message-ID:<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="UTF-8"

Putting "backup" in calling them out is what most likely is confusing
folks.

They are transactions rollback archives.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael or Penny Novack<[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 10:06 AM
To:[email protected]
Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups

I realize people are treating THESE backups as satisfying the need to back
up your data. But better to think of these as "session backups" and not
replacement For your general backup procedure.

Michael D Novack


On 6/18/2026 9:48 PM, Ken Pyzik wrote:
OK - I think I may have found the answer to my own question.  In the
EDIT>>Preferences>>General, there is a setting to Retain Logs/Backup files
with three options - Never, For X number of days or Forever.  The default
appears to be 30 days.  Now this is interesting.
If this is true - which I believe it is - this means that if you go into
Gnucash every day, you can end up with up to 30 or 31 logs and backup
files.  So, someone could assume that they could just change it to 3 days
and that would be fine.  However, if you do NOT open Gnucash everyday - but
instead open it up once a week, you would need keep the logs for 21 days in
order to have 3 backups.  By the same token, if you are someone who only
opens Gnucash once a month - or only once every couple of months, you would
need to keep the files for up to 60 or 90 days in order to get 3 full
backups.
I am guessing that this is the behavior and that it has probably been
this way forever.  I am also guessing that if you only want 3 backups
definitively - you have to adjust the days accordingly to the way you use
the system - i.e., how often you open and work with the files.  And if you
go into the system multiple times a day - you could end up with A LOT of
backups and logs files.
Is this behavior correct?  If yes, would changing it to be a definitive
number be difficult?  I assuming it is, otherwise I would have thought it
would have been changed by now.
Ken
________________________________
From: gnucash-user
<[email protected]> on behalf of Ken
Pyzik<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 6:05 PM
To: Gnucash Users<[email protected]>
Subject: [GNC] Logs and Backups

This may have been mentioned in the past - and if so - sorry for the
repeat.  However, I noticed today 10 ".log" and 10 ".<<date>>.gnucash"
files.  So, I am assuming that gnucash is keeping 10 transaction and log
file backups.  Is this correct?  If so, is this the default and if it is
the default, can this be changed to only 2 or 3? Thanks for the reply.
_______________________________________________
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There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the
equality of the grave.





------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 17:29:51 +0000
From: Ken Pyzik<[email protected]>
To: Gnucash Users<[email protected]>
Subject: [GNC] Fw:  Logs and Backups
Message-ID:
         <
co1pr05mb8588f12cb1999baa789988b5ae...@co1pr05mb8588.namprd05.prod.outlook.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Not sure this made it the first time. Sorry if it's a duplicate.

________________________________
From: Ken Pyzik<[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 8:20 AM
To: Paul Kroitor<[email protected]>;[email protected] < 
[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups

Excellent analysis - everyone.  So, out of curiosity, I took a look at one
of the logs.  While a little difficult to fully decipher, they are indeed,
just a log of transactions entered during that particular session.  I did
not look at the backup gnucash files - my assumption is that they are just
a snapshot of the gnucash file at the point in time immediately before or
after those session transactions were posted.

So - what this tells me - is that these log files are "backup snapshots"
to provide an effective audit trail for someone to go back and re-create
the situation as it was at a point in time.  In other words, today I
discover that one of my accounts is out of whack.  Effectively (and
theoretically), I could use the logs to trace back every transaction that
happened and possibly (and probably if I am a good forensic IT/Audit
person) could figure out what caused the account to get out of whack.

So technically, as Paul pointed out - these really are NOT backups in the
sense of a catastrophic situation.  They are merely snapshots to use for
forensic investigations (i.e., can use them to trace back where you may
have screwed something up).

Therefore, if someone wants to - they could effectively change the value
to 0 if they are doing backups and did not care to trace back old
transactions.  On the reverse side, you could keep them forever,
particularly if you are using them for company books and need to keep them
for regulatory purposes (some business jurisdiction requirements).

Thanks for the discussion.  Learned something today!

Ken






________________________________
From: gnucash-user<[email protected]>
on behalf of Paul Kroitor<[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 7:43 AM
To:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups

As an IT person for more than 50 years, a copy of the data on the same
device as the original (or even online in the same attached network) is
NOT A BACKUP. It's a restore point, rollback snapshot, or something
along those lines.

If you take inventory of the possible risks to a live database, only
three are mitigated by such copies:
- erroneous / mistaken updates (eg. bad imports, trainee entry mistakes)
- data corruption due to software / logic issues
- data corruption due to (very) local hardware flaws (eg unrecoverable
disk sectors)

Half a dozen other risks aren't mitigated at all, including disk
failure, loss of access due to credential issues (eg. full disk
encryption lockout), equipment loss (eg. theft, fire, earthquakes),
ransomware attacks, malfeasance, etc.

A backup is what you use when you don't have your usual daily tools to
do your tasks, be it your current data file, OS, login, computer, or
even your building.

Paul


On 2026-06-19 10:05 a.m., Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user wrote:
I realize people are treating THESE backups as satisfying the need to
back up your data. But better to think of these as "session backups"
and not replacement For your general backup procedure.

Michael D Novack


On 6/18/2026 9:48 PM, Ken Pyzik wrote:
OK - I think I may have found the answer to my own question.  In the
EDIT>>Preferences>>General, there is a setting to Retain Logs/Backup
files with three options - Never, For X number of days or Forever.
The default appears to be 30 days. Now this is interesting.

If this is true - which I believe it is - this means that if you go
into Gnucash every day, you can end up with up to 30 or 31 logs and
backup files.  So, someone could assume that they could just change
it to 3 days and that would be fine.  However, if you do NOT open
Gnucash everyday - but instead open it up once a week, you would need
keep the logs for 21 days in order to have 3 backups.  By the same
token, if you are someone who only opens Gnucash once a month - or
only once every couple of months, you would need to keep the files
for up to 60 or 90 days in order to get 3 full backups.

I am guessing that this is the behavior and that it has probably been
this way forever.  I am also guessing that if you only want 3 backups
definitively - you have to adjust the days accordingly to the way you
use the system - i.e., how often you open and work with the files.
And if you go into the system multiple times a day - you could end up
with A LOT of backups and logs files.

Is this behavior correct?  If yes, would changing it to be a
definitive number be difficult?  I assuming it is, otherwise I would
have thought it would have been changed by now.

Ken
________________________________
From: gnucash-user
<[email protected]> on behalf of Ken
Pyzik<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 6:05 PM
To: Gnucash Users<[email protected]>
Subject: [GNC] Logs and Backups

This may have been mentioned in the past - and if so - sorry for the
repeat.  However, I noticed today 10 ".log" and 10
".<<date>>.gnucash" files.  So, I am assuming that gnucash is keeping
10 transaction and log file backups.  Is this correct?  If so, is
this the default and if it is the default, can this be changed to
only 2 or 3? Thanks for the reply.
_______________________________________________
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.
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------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:58:55 -0700
From: Clint Chaplin<[email protected]>
To: "David T."<[email protected]>
Cc:[email protected], John Ralls<[email protected]>,  Derek
         Atkins<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] GnuCash and USD tenths and mils
Message-ID:
         <CAEf=QbBPmnufT_3hE8y8nE+-hApKPGnO49pQh3=K8mfFqYq2= 
[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Well, the stock has been through three (that I can remember) different
share registries, and has never been with a broker.  The latest share
registry's records only go back to 2007, so the onus on keeping the records
is on me.

On Fri, Jun 19, 2026 at 2:10?AM David T.<[email protected]> wrote:

Well, yes-- but you'd have to track basis anyhow. My point was that you
could do all the transactions in one account, split at the end, and only
have to split the shares and basis at the end.

If, on the other hand, your concern is that calculating basis and gains
on
a large series of smaller events is difficult, well, yes that's true.

And the options there are:
1) let the GnuCash lots feature calculate gains on a lot-by-lot basis
(works, but results in complex splits);
2) enter all these same details yourself manually (augh!); or
3) use aggregated figures provided by the brokerage.

I can tell you from experience that the first two are tricky to handle,
and even determining whether your numbers are accurate can be deeply
challenging.

I decided for myself that I wasn't going to be challenging the numbers
the
brokers provided anyway, so I might as well use their numbers throughout.

IANAA and YMMV.

David T.


On June 19, 2026 12:02:06 PM GMT+05:30, Clint Chaplin <[email protected]

wrote:

For use case 1, the distribution did not happen immediately; in fact it
was delayed for five years (families, amirite?).  In that time, the
original and 20 DRIPs accumulated, and for tax purposes we have to keep
track of the basis of the DRIPs.

On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 9:55?PM David T.<[email protected]> wrote:

Clint,

With use case 1: was the inheritance split as a percentage or as a set
number of shares? If, as I suspect, it was a percentage, then why not
simply take the final share count at the time of distribution and split
that in half? I don't see any point in doing it the other way round.
Presumably, the aggregated shares all appreciate at the same rate, and
two
equal holdings would have appreciated at the rate rate as well. So,
half at
the beginning will be half at the end.

As for the stock spinoff, you "sell" the shares and "receive" a total
dollar amount, then you "buy" a different number of shares for that
same
dollar amount. Technically, the rates don't really matter that much.
Just
the number of shares involved at each stage. Note that in many spinoff
situations, your original number of shares results in a fractional
number
of new shares (you are spun back 55.3 shares, say). This is usually
handled
by the brokerage as "Cash in lieu." I have usually handled this in
GnuCash
by creating a single transaction that has the accurate spinoff amount
in
shares and dollars, with a separate split to sell the fractional share
at
the cash in lieu amount. It is then quite clear what happened, the
basis is
accurate, and you can derive the gain on the fractional sale easily. I
add
notes to the splits to explain what's going on.

David T.


On June 19, 2026 8:58:42 AM GMT+05:30, John Ralls<[email protected]>
wrote:

You can. But as you might have discovered empirically it?s not
consistently used: A rough grep finds 35 uses of
xaccAccountGetCommoditySCU, which returns the fraction set in the Account
Edit Dialog, and 104 uses of gnc_commodity_get_fraction, which returns the
fraction set in the currency editor.
Regards,
John Ralls

On Jun 18, 2026, at 15:49, Clint Chaplin<[email protected]> wrote:
What I find interesting is that GnuCash has the ability for me to
set any arbitrary USD cash accounts to 3, 4, 5 or more decimal digits, and
yet that ability cannot be carried over to the USD cash side of
conversions/transfers to and from non-USD accounts.
On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 10:46?AM John Ralls <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>> wrote:
Clint,

Don?t sweat the pennies in stock basis, they don?t make a practical
difference anywhere.
For splitting the DRIPs bases alternate the rounding so that for
the first one your basis is (e.g.) .45 and your sister?s is .46, the second
your basis is .46 and your sister?s is .45, and so on. Notice that if there
are an even number of such dividends you come out even and if there are an
odd number your sister comes out .01 ahead. That?s to promote familial
peace. It doesn?t actually matter,
Regards,
John Ralls

On Jun 18, 2026, at 09:30, Clint Chaplin <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>> wrote:
Hmm, I actually have two use cases, neither of which involve stock
splits, sorry for the deke.
I and my sister inherited some stock from our father, split
50/50.  It took several years to settle the estate, and meanwhile the stock
split 2 for 1 twice and kept DRIPping.  When it came time to actually
distribute the stock, we had to split the original stock with the basis at
the time of death, and also the subsequent DRIPs.  If the total value of a
DRIP happened to be odd, then the amount bequeathed to each person when
split 50/50 would have a half cent.
Second use case: spinoffs.  To record the split, the original
stock is "sold" for the original value and basis, and then "bought" for the
modified value and basis, which could be any fraction of the original value
and basis (in my case, .9581688 of the original amount and basis), while
the remainder value is used to "purchase" the spun off stock (in my case,
.0418312 of the original value).  This ain't gonna be an even number of
cents...
On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 8:54?AM Derek Atkins <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:[email protected] < [email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>>> wrote:
Keep in mind that gnucash does not store the price in the
register, it stores the #shares and total $value.  Are you saying you would
have a mil in the total value of the split?
-derek
Sent using my mobile device. Please excuse any typos.

On June 18, 2026 11:38:28 Clint Chaplin <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:[email protected] < [email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>>> wrote:
Unfortunate.  My use case is stock that has split.  The suggested
way to
record this change in basis in GnuCash is to sell all the stock,
and then
rebuy at the split quantities at the new pricing.  This will
lead to
amounts that are fractions of a penny, but simply cannot be
recorded in
GnuCash with the current restriction.

Even worse is when a spinoff happens and needs to be recorded.
The basis
of the stock needs to be modified, but the only way I can see is
to "sell"
and "buy" at the new basis, but the total amount per purchase
cannot be in
fractions of a penny.

When I have over 100 lots to do this to, the rounding to the
nearest penny
will catch up...

On Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 2:53?PM John Ralls <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:
[email protected] <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected] < 
[email protected]>>>> wrote:
No, no more than you can get a 10th of a penny at the bank or
the grocery
store. Prices can be in fractions of a penny, amounts cannot.

Regards,
John Ralls


On Jun 16, 2026, at 10:39?PM, Clint Chaplin <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:[email protected] < [email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>>> wrote:
Is there a way to set GnuCash to take USD tenths and mils on
some
accounts?  My default is USD, if that matters...

--
Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin
------------------------------
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------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 19:04:41 +0100
From: Wm Tarr<[email protected]>
To:[email protected]
Subject: Re: [GNC] Fw: Logs and Backups
Message-ID:<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

You can even replay log files, see

2.5.?Backing Up and Recovering Data
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/basics-backup1.html>

for more.

Wm


On 2026-06-19 18:29, Ken Pyzik wrote:
Not sure this made it the first time. Sorry if it's a duplicate.

________________________________
From: Ken Pyzik<[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 8:20 AM
To: Paul Kroitor<[email protected]>;[email protected] <
[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups

Excellent analysis - everyone.  So, out of curiosity, I took a look at
one of the logs.  While a little difficult to fully decipher, they are
indeed, just a log of transactions entered during that particular session.
I did not look at the backup gnucash files - my assumption is that they are
just a snapshot of the gnucash file at the point in time immediately before
or after those session transactions were posted.
So - what this tells me - is that these log files are "backup snapshots"
to provide an effective audit trail for someone to go back and re-create
the situation as it was at a point in time.  In other words, today I
discover that one of my accounts is out of whack.  Effectively (and
theoretically), I could use the logs to trace back every transaction that
happened and possibly (and probably if I am a good forensic IT/Audit
person) could figure out what caused the account to get out of whack.
So technically, as Paul pointed out - these really are NOT backups in
the sense of a catastrophic situation.  They are merely snapshots to use
for forensic investigations (i.e., can use them to trace back where you may
have screwed something up).
Therefore, if someone wants to - they could effectively change the value
to 0 if they are doing backups and did not care to trace back old
transactions.  On the reverse side, you could keep them forever,
particularly if you are using them for company books and need to keep them
for regulatory purposes (some business jurisdiction requirements).
Thanks for the discussion.  Learned something today!

Ken






________________________________
From: gnucash-user<[email protected]>
on behalf of Paul Kroitor<[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 7:43 AM
To:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Logs and Backups

As an IT person for more than 50 years, a copy of the data on the same
device as the original (or even online in the same attached network) is
NOT A BACKUP. It's a restore point, rollback snapshot, or something
along those lines.

If you take inventory of the possible risks to a live database, only
three are mitigated by such copies:
- erroneous / mistaken updates (eg. bad imports, trainee entry mistakes)
- data corruption due to software / logic issues
- data corruption due to (very) local hardware flaws (eg unrecoverable
disk sectors)

Half a dozen other risks aren't mitigated at all, including disk
failure, loss of access due to credential issues (eg. full disk
encryption lockout), equipment loss (eg. theft, fire, earthquakes),
ransomware attacks, malfeasance, etc.

A backup is what you use when you don't have your usual daily tools to
do your tasks, be it your current data file, OS, login, computer, or
even your building.

Paul


On 2026-06-19 10:05 a.m., Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user wrote:
I realize people are treating THESE backups as satisfying the need to
back up your data. But better to think of these as "session backups"
and not replacement For your general backup procedure.

Michael D Novack


On 6/18/2026 9:48 PM, Ken Pyzik wrote:
OK - I think I may have found the answer to my own question.  In the
EDIT>>Preferences>>General, there is a setting to Retain Logs/Backup
files with three options - Never, For X number of days or Forever.
The default appears to be 30 days. Now this is interesting.

If this is true - which I believe it is - this means that if you go
into Gnucash every day, you can end up with up to 30 or 31 logs and
backup files.  So, someone could assume that they could just change
it to 3 days and that would be fine.  However, if you do NOT open
Gnucash everyday - but instead open it up once a week, you would need
keep the logs for 21 days in order to have 3 backups.  By the same
token, if you are someone who only opens Gnucash once a month - or
only once every couple of months, you would need to keep the files
for up to 60 or 90 days in order to get 3 full backups.

I am guessing that this is the behavior and that it has probably been
this way forever.  I am also guessing that if you only want 3 backups
definitively - you have to adjust the days accordingly to the way you
use the system - i.e., how often you open and work with the files.
And if you go into the system multiple times a day - you could end up
with A LOT of backups and logs files.

Is this behavior correct?  If yes, would changing it to be a
definitive number be difficult?  I assuming it is, otherwise I would
have thought it would have been changed by now.

Ken
________________________________
From: gnucash-user
<[email protected]> on behalf of Ken
Pyzik<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 6:05 PM
To: Gnucash Users<[email protected]>
Subject: [GNC] Logs and Backups

This may have been mentioned in the past - and if so - sorry for the
repeat.  However, I noticed today 10 ".log" and 10
".<<date>>.gnucash" files.  So, I am assuming that gnucash is keeping
10 transaction and log file backups.  Is this correct?  If so, is
this the default and if it is the default, can this be changed to
only 2 or 3? Thanks for the reply.
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Message: 5
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2026 12:08:42 -0700
From: Clint Chaplin<[email protected]>
To: "David T."<[email protected]>
Cc:[email protected], John Ralls<[email protected]>,  Derek
         Atkins<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [GNC] GnuCash and USD tenths and mils
Message-ID:
         <CAEf=QbBg_DR=dennojZx9UtwXKV=e=dG27bh-Y_uoV8= [email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Interestingly enough, when IBM spun off KD, my shares were registered with
the registry agent ComputerShare, and I got to keep the fractional share,
since the registry agent already handles fractional shares easily.  No
broker involved.

On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 9:55?PM David T.<[email protected]> wrote:

Clint,

With use case 1: was the inheritance split as a percentage or as a set
number of shares? If, as I suspect, it was a percentage, then why not
simply take the final share count at the time of distribution and split
that in half? I don't see any point in doing it the other way round.
Presumably, the aggregated shares all appreciate at the same rate, and
two
equal holdings would have appreciated at the rate rate as well. So, half
at
the beginning will be half at the end.

As for the stock spinoff, you "sell" the shares and "receive" a total
dollar amount, then you "buy" a different number of shares for that same
dollar amount. Technically, the rates don't really matter that much. Just
the number of shares involved at each stage. Note that in many spinoff
situations, your original number of shares results in a fractional number
of new shares (you are spun back 55.3 shares, say). This is usually
handled
by the brokerage as "Cash in lieu." I have usually handled this in
GnuCash
by creating a single transaction that has the accurate spinoff amount in
shares and dollars, with a separate split to sell the fractional share at
the cash in lieu amount. It is then quite clear what happened, the basis
is
accurate, and you can derive the gain on the fractional sale easily. I
add
notes to the splits to explain what's going on.

David T.


On June 19, 2026 8:58:42 AM GMT+05:30, John Ralls<[email protected]>
wrote:

You can. But as you might have discovered empirically it?s not
consistently used: A rough grep finds 35 uses of
xaccAccountGetCommoditySCU, which returns the fraction set in the Account
Edit Dialog, and 104 uses of gnc_commodity_get_fraction, which returns the
fraction set in the currency editor.
Regards,
John Ralls

On Jun 18, 2026, at 15:49, Clint Chaplin<[email protected]> wrote:
What I find interesting is that GnuCash has the ability for me to set
any arbitrary USD cash accounts to 3, 4, 5 or more decimal digits, and yet
that ability cannot be carried over to the USD cash side of
conversions/transfers to and from non-USD accounts.
On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 10:46?AM John Ralls <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>> wrote:
Clint,

Don?t sweat the pennies in stock basis, they don?t make a practical
difference anywhere.
For splitting the DRIPs bases alternate the rounding so that for the
first one your basis is (e.g.) .45 and your sister?s is .46, the second
your basis is .46 and your sister?s is .45, and so on. Notice that if there
are an even number of such dividends you come out even and if there are an
odd number your sister comes out .01 ahead. That?s to promote familial
peace. It doesn?t actually matter,
Regards,
John Ralls

On Jun 18, 2026, at 09:30, Clint Chaplin <[email protected] <mailto:
[email protected] <[email protected]>>> wrote:
Hmm, I actually have two use cases, neither of which involve stock
splits, sorry for the deke.
I and my sister inherited some stock from our father, split 50/50.
It took several years to settle the estate, and meanwhile the stock split 2
for 1 twice and kept DRIPping.  When it came time to actually distribute
the stock, we had to split the original stock with the basis at the time of
death, and also the subsequent DRIPs.  If the total value of a DRIP
happened to be odd, then the amount bequeathed to each person when split
50/50 would have a half cent.
Second use case: spinoffs.  To record the split, the original stock
is "sold" for the original value and basis, and then "bought" for the
modified value and basis, which could be any fraction of the original value
and basis (in my case, .9581688 of the original amount and basis), while
the remainder value is used to "purchase" the spun off stock (in my case,
.0418312 of the original value).  This ain't gonna be an even number of
cents...
On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 8:54?AM Derek Atkins <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:[email protected] < [email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>>> wrote:
Keep in mind that gnucash does not store the price in the register,
it stores the #shares and total $value.  Are you saying you would have a
mil in the total value of the split?
-derek
Sent using my mobile device. Please excuse any typos.

On June 18, 2026 11:38:28 Clint Chaplin <[email protected] <mailto:
[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:[email protected] < [email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>>> wrote:
Unfortunate.  My use case is stock that has split.  The suggested
way to
record this change in basis in GnuCash is to sell all the stock,
and then
rebuy at the split quantities at the new pricing.  This will lead
to
amounts that are fractions of a penny, but simply cannot be
recorded in
GnuCash with the current restriction.

Even worse is when a spinoff happens and needs to be recorded.
The basis
of the stock needs to be modified, but the only way I can see is
to "sell"
and "buy" at the new basis, but the total amount per purchase
cannot be in
fractions of a penny.

When I have over 100 lots to do this to, the rounding to the
nearest penny
will catch up...

On Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 2:53?PM John Ralls <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:
[email protected] <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected] < 
[email protected]>>>> wrote:
No, no more than you can get a 10th of a penny at the bank or the
grocery
store. Prices can be in fractions of a penny, amounts cannot.

Regards,
John Ralls


On Jun 16, 2026, at 10:39?PM, Clint Chaplin <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>> <mailto:[email protected] < [email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>>>> wrote:
Is there a way to set GnuCash to take USD tenths and mils on some
accounts?  My default is USD, if that matters...

--
Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin
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--
Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin

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--
Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin

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Subject: Digest Footer

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End of gnucash-user Digest, Vol 279, Issue 37
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