To register the initial 100 shares of this stock that you purchased previously, on the first transaction line, enter the date of the purchase (eg: Jan. 1 2005), a description (eg: Initial Purchase), transfer from Equity:Opening Balances, Shares (eg: 100), and Price (eg: $20). You do not need to fill in the Buy column, as it will be calculated for you. This example assumed there was no commission on this transaction to simplify the example. Your AMZN Commodity view should now appear like this:

This image is of the transaction register of the AMZN account after the first stock account “purchase”.

Notice that the Balance is in the units of the commodity (AMZN shares) not in currency units. Thus, the balance is 100 (AMZN units) rather than $2000. This is how it should be.

The only difference between setting up a new stock purchase versus the setup for preexisting stocks as described in the previous section is that instead of transferring the money used to purchase the stock from the Equity:Opening Balances account, you use your Assets:Bank ABC account.

Now you will purchase $5000 of IBM stock, with a commission of $100. First step will be to create the stock account for IBM. The existing Expenses:Commissions account will be used. If you wish to track commissions to the individual stock an additional sub-account would be necessary.

Now for the transaction, on the first transaction line, enter the date of the purchase (eg: Jan. 3 2005), a description (eg: Initial IBM Purchase), Shares will be skipped (to be calculated), Price (eg: $96.60), and Buy ($5000). You do not need to fill in the Shares column, as it will be calculated for you. The next line in the split transaction will be Expenses:Commissions and fill in Buy ($100). The third line will be to transfer from Assets:Bank ABC:Savings, $5100 to balance the transaction. Your IBM Commodity view should now appear like this:

This image is of the transaction register of the IBM account after the first stock account “purchase” with a commission.