newbie how-to-best-do-it ?

[Frank P. Miles]

Dave Peticolas wrote:
> 
> "Frank P. Miles" writes:
> > Bill Gribble wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 11:46:32PM +1100, Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> > > > Frank P. Miles writes:s
> > > >  >    c) set up an "income" account on higher level
> > > >  >            Problem: Gnucash can't readily associate the income
> > > >  >            with its source.  It still gets counted as cost.
> > > >  > Similar things occur, AFAICT, with bank accounts and such.
> > > >
> > > > You're absolutely right - we need the ability to associate dividends
> > > > (which directly affect only an income and a bank account) with the
> > > > stock that generates them.
> > >
> > > I must have deleted the first bit of this thread, sorry.
> > >
> > > What's the problem with the way the QIF code does this automatically?
> > > Each stock you hold has a separate income account for dividends,
> > > also separated by the brokerage:
> > >
> > > Dean Witter:IBM Common             <---- the STOCK account
> > > Dividends:Dean Witter:IBM Common   <---- income account for dividends
> > >
> > > This isn't as pretty as it could be, but it correctly keeps the
> > > information separate.  RSN each account will also have some
> > > meta-information that will allow you to "group" all the IBM-related
> > > accounts together, but the way described above doesn't get you any
> > > wrong answers.  Does it?
> >
> > When you look at the individual accounts, the numbers are all
> > reasonable.
> > The signs take some effort to internalize but that's ok.
> 
> You have some control over how signs are displayed.
> See the Settings menu under "General" and "Reverse balance accounts".

Changing the sign won't help: the cost of the account as described is
$10,
not $10 + $2, nor $10 - $2 {this refers to the report, not the account
itself}.

	-frank