custom separate trading accounts

[gnucash.133518b at telus.net]

On 2014-05-23 10:53 PM, Mike Alexander wrote:
>> I just started playing with the Advanced Portfolio report. I don't
>> yet know if it'll do what I need to get ACB, but I'm already puzzled
>> by something. I've attached an example GnuCash file to demonstrate
>> it. If I open it in GnuCash 2.6.3 and generate an Advanced Portfolio
>> report specifying a date of 2013-01-04, I get the following
>> (transposed for better email formatting):
>>
>>    Advanced Portfolio 2013-01-04
>>
>>    Account              Shares        Total
>>    Symbol                  SHA
>>    Listing               ASSET
>>    Shares                  100
>>    Price                $11.00
>>    Basis               $900.00      $900.00
>>    Value             $1,000.00    $1,000.00
>>    Money In          $1,300.00    $1,300.00
>>    Money Out           $450.00      $450.00
>>    Realized Gain        $50.00       $50.00
>>    Unrealized Gain     $100.00      $100.00
>>    Total Gain          $150.00      $150.00
>>    Rate of Gain         11.54%       11.54%
>>    Income                $0.00        $0.00
>>    Brokerage Fees        $0.00        $0.00
>>    Total Return        $150.00      $150.00
>>    Rate of Return       11.54%       11.54%
>>
>> Notice that price of $11? You'll find in the attached file's Price
>> Editor that $11/share is the price for 2013-01-05 but it should be
>> $10/share for 2013-01-04. Am I wrong that this report should have
>> Price = Value / Shares?
>
> Exactly what options did you use to produce this report?  Reports aren't
> saved with the file so I had to guess.  If I pick a date of 2013-01-04 I
> get something completely different (only 50 shares), but if I pick
> 2013-01-05, it's close to your report.  The only real difference is that
> the current value is calculated correctly.  In the report you quote
> above it's wrong since $11*100=$1100 not $1000.  At any rate I don't see
> anything to indicate the report is not working right.

If I change my report date to 2013-01-05, I get a Price of $7/share, 
which is again wrong since that would be the price for 2013-01-06. There 
seems to be some weird off-by-one date issue with the displayed Price 
even though the displayed Value seems to be calculated according to the 
correct price.

Are you not seeing the Assets:Investments:Shares register with a 
transaction buying 50 shares on 2013-01-04 achieving a balance of 100 
shares?

The options I used for the report output I supplied in my previous message:
   Accounts - Assets:Investments:Shares
   Display - All "Show..." options ticked
   General:
     Date - 2013-01-04
     Report's currency - CAD
     Price source - Nearest in time
     Basis calculation method - Average
     Set preference for price list data - ticked
     How to report brokerage fees - Include in basis

If I change Price Source from "Nearest in time" to "Most recent" the 
report Price becomes $7/share, but still not $10/share. I would have 
thought "Most recent" should be relative to the report date rather than 
today's date, but maybe I just don't understand the rationale for 
applying current pricing to transactions from more than a year ago.

I'm using GnuCash 2.6.3 for Windows "built from git rev 166cbb7+ on 
2014-04-01", according to About GnuCash. My time zone is PST/PDT, if 
that matters.

> As far as whether the reports will do what you want, I'll have to leave
> that up to others.  I'm not qualified to say whether or not they will
> satisfy Canadian (or any other) tax authorities.  If you (or anyone
> else) wants to vet them against accounting standards, then please do
> so.  I don't think they are as bad as you seem to think, but I would
> never pretend that there aren't problems and bugs.  Also, the fact that
> the cash flow report may (or may not) have bugs has no bearing on the
> advanced portfolio report.  They share no code except the basic report
> infrastructure.

I do recognize that Advanced Portfolio and Cash Flow are distinct 
scripts. I'm no accountant, so I can't judge the reports as being good 
or bad. It's just that so far I've only really looked at Cash Flow and 
Advanced Portfolio and both gave me wrong results. A patched version of 
Cash Flow was quickly provided, which was impressive, but the 
disagreements I see over whether it even implements cash flow correctly 
are little disconcerting.

Carl