Share Balance is not displaying correctly on the Investment Transaction screen

Question

I recently upgraded to Mac 6.4.5 and when I entered the Investment Transaction screen I noticed the layout was different.  I went to the columns control and noticed many of my usual fields had been unchecked.  So I rebuilt the layout and then noticed the "Shares" field was showing the same value as the "Shares In" field. I thought that the Shares field was the current shares balance.  When I look at the "Portfolio" view I see the correct current shares balance. Am I mistaken in thinking the "Shares" field is supposed to be the total number of shares not the current transaction's number of shares?

jacobs · Accepted Answer

In the Portfolio view, Shares shows your total shares held.

In the Transaction register, Shares shows the total number of shares in a transaction. Positive numbers are shares in, negative numbers are shares out. There is no reason I can think of for having the Shares In/Shares Out fields and the Shares field visible in your register. Shares In/Shares Out are unsigned (always positive) values, while Shares is a single column signed (positive or negative value). This is similar to a checking account, where you can show Payment (money out) and Deposit (money in) columns for unsigned numbers, or a single Amount column for a signed number; you wouldn't show both.

Geo H · Accepted Answer

Thank you Jacob.  I was coming back to update my issue and saw your reply.  It turns out that this is more of a "User" error.  When I looked closer I saw I had selected the Brokerage Account not my individual Account, which is listed under  Brokerage.  On that Transaction screen it had the "Share Balance" field I was use to seeing.  I didn't have that field to select on the brokerage screen and that was where my confusion came from.  Thanks for taking the time to share you explanation with me.