Track RSU or ESPP for a public company

Hi, I work for a company which is publicly listed. I’d like to know what is the proper way to track the vested RSUs and ESPP (Employee Stock Purchse Plans) ?

Should I add an “Account Balance” Transaction ? Some shares are sold automatically to pay the tax at the time of vesting.

It really depends on what you want to track and details of both programs.

RSUs

In many cases company buys stock at a predefined price on your behalf - so it’s a Buy transaction with that price. This will capture both the return from stock appreciation, but also your gain from having a better (or worse) price.

Because you don’t buy it with your own money - there’s no cash to track. You can disable cash tracking for this Buy transaction (you need to enable Interest based assets in Settings / Early Access).

If you receive stocks, it’s rather a Transfer transaction. The cost-basis would be whatever cost-basis you need to use for tax purposes.

I’d ignore stocks sold to pay tax, but you can log their $ equivalent as tax paid for posterity.

ESPP

The program I had, was about accumulating cash from paycheck that was used to buy stock and discounted price after N months.

The buy part is easy - it’s a Buy with the discounted price.

The accumulated cash can be tracked with “Account Balance” or “Transfer” transactions.