Recording a sale where you received less than you paid works exactly the same as any other sale in Gold Silver Ledger. There's no separate form, no special checkbox, no "I'm taking a loss on this one" toggle. You tick the items in Step 1, enter the price you actually received in Step 2, and submit.
The form does the subtraction and stores a negative realized gain. This article covers what changes — and what doesn't — when the resulting number is below zero.
For the broader walkthrough, see How to record a sale.
The form doesn't care which direction the number goes
Mechanically, a sale at a loss and a sale at a gain are the same operation. The Record Sale form computes realized G/L per item as sale price − cost basis. If that number comes out positive, you've recorded a gain.
If it comes out negative, you've recorded a loss. The form, the database, and every downstream surface treat both cases with the same code path.
A few visual cues will tell you which direction you're going while you fill in the form:
The live realized G/L under each Sale Price input turns green for a gain and red for a loss as you type the sale price.
The Total Proceeds figure in the bottom strip will sit below the Total Cost Basis figure when the overall transaction is at a loss.
The Realised G/L total is prefixed with a minus sign and shown in red.
Nothing about the form fights you when the numbers come out negative. The Record Sale button submits the transaction regardless.
A concrete example
Say you bought a 1 oz American Gold Eagle in early 2026 for $4,950 — spot was $4,850 at the time, and you paid a $100 premium.
Today, you sell that coin to a dealer who pays you $4,650 (gold spot is around $4,700, and the dealer's buyback runs slightly below spot).
In the Record Sale form:
Step 1: Tick the specific Eagle you sold. The row's Unrealized G/L column already shows a small red number reflecting the difference between your cost basis and the current value at today's spot.
Step 2: Enter $4,650 as the Sale Price.
The row's live realized G/L appears as −$300 in red.
The Totals strip shows Total Cost Basis $4,950, Total Proceeds $4,650, Realised G/L −$300.
Submit the sale.
The Eagle moves from HELD to SOLD with a realized loss of $300 recorded against it. Nothing else about the form behaves differently than it would for a $300 gain.
Where the realized loss flows through
After submitting, the loss surfaces in the same places a gain would, with the sign carried through:
The Sold tab on Holdings lists the item with its sale price, cost basis, and realized G/L in red.
The Transactions History page shows the new sell transaction. Expanding it shows the per-item loss.
The Analytics page picks up the realized loss in its performance figures for the period the sale falls in. If you've had a mix of gains and losses across the year, the chart reflects the net.
The Annual Report (Premium) records the loss in the relevant tax year, sorted into short-term or long-term based on the item's individual holding period, same as any other disposal. Short-term and long-term losses each get their own line on the report.
Realized losses are part of your overall realized-gain figure, not a separate category in Gold Silver Ledger's analytics. A loss is just a gain with the sign flipped.
Realized loss vs. unrealized loss
Worth being explicit about, because these are easy to conflate:
Unrealized loss: Your held items' current value is below their cost basis, but you haven't sold. This is the red number in the Unrealized G/L column on Holdings, and it changes constantly as spot moves. Nothing about an unrealized loss is permanent — the next price move could erase it.
Realized loss: You've actually disposed of items at a price below cost basis. The number is locked in the moment the sell transaction is recorded, and it doesn't move with spot afterward.
The Record Sale form is what turns an unrealized loss into a realized one. Until you submit a sale, the loss is just an on-screen calculation against today's spot — the item is still in your inventory and the figure shifts as spot shifts.
A note on tax treatment
We don't give tax advice, but two mechanical points are worth knowing about how the Annual Report handles losses, in case you're on Premium and using the report at tax time:
The loss is reported with its holding period: Items held less than a year produce short-term losses; items held a year or more produce long-term losses. The report sorts each disposal into the right bucket based on the individual item's purchase and sale dates.
The report shows realized losses; it does not compute your tax liability: Whether a realized loss offsets a gain elsewhere, how it interacts with the collectibles rate, and what (if anything) is deductible in your situation is a question for a tax professional.
If you're not on Premium, you can still see the realized loss on Holdings and Analytics.
What if I sold and want to undo it?
If the sale was a mistake, deleting the sell transaction reverses everything: the items flip back from SOLD to HELD, the realized loss disappears from analytics, and the items rejoin your active holdings exactly as they were before.
If the sale was correct but you entered the wrong sale price, you can edit the transaction instead of deleting and re-recording.
Where to go next
How to record a sale: The full Record Sale form walkthrough.
What happens to sold items in your inventory: The HELD-to-SOLD status story, in detail.
Generating your Annual Report: Where realized gains and losses end up at tax time.
Editing a transaction after the fact: Correcting a sale price after submit.
Deleting a sell transaction: Reversing a sale entirely.