Account Balance is a unique transaction type designed to help you maintain an accurate balance for accounts where you do not have access to historical transactions or don't need them. This feature creates either a 'Buy' or 'Sell' transaction underneath to reconcile any discrepancies in your balance.
Account Balance updates are particularly useful if you're not interested in tracking every single transaction that contributes to your position. Instead, you're more focused on a general overview of your account. This is often the case with cash accounts, where periodic balance updates are completely fine.
You can use Balance Updates for any type of asset, whether it's to track the initial balance or to record it continously in cases where you don't have access to the full transaction history.
If you update the balance on every day you make a transaction on an account, your performance metrics should be fairly accurate. However, please note that you won't have access to historical performance, fees, and any gains/losses between the closing price and the price you actually paid. On the other hand, you can always create balance updates in the past. Moreover, you can record fees, gains, and losses using the Other transaction type.
One of the best features of Account Balance is its flexibility. If at any point you need more detailed transaction information, you can always add it. The account balances will automatically adjust, and there won't be any discrepancies to reconcile.
On the other hand, you can use them to quickly "fix" a broken history so you can see the current portfolio composition and leave the actual fixing for later.
There are multiple ways to update account balances.
When viewing the Positions tab in Portfolio, you can double click on a row, or choose Edit position from the context menu. You can change both the Quantity and Market Price there, so it's great to quickly update both your account balances and market prices of custom assets.
The quantity and price is set for the date you are currently viewing - so today by default.
You can change that date in the Date Period selector above the graph.
Add the Balance Update transaction for the Asset and Account you want to update. You will be able to set a specific date and update the Market Price as well.
You can download or prepare a CSV file with columns for Date, Asset Name/Ticker, and Balance. Then just follow the guide on importing from the file. For the Transaction Type you want to choose Account Balance and remember to assign the balance column to Quantity.
This is a great way to import prices for a single asset, but you can also use it to import prices for a bunch of assets. It's especially useful if you have a custom asset like bonds, and your broker provides you with a table of current prices or value of your assets.