Implementing proper cost basis tracking for shares

Clark Jones jones@inficad.com
Mon, 30 Oct 2000 08:21:27 -0700


Rob Browning wrote:
> 
> Robert Graham Merkel <rgmerk@mira.net> writes:
> 
> >  > I don't really know how much flexibility we'd want to allow initially,
> >  > but changing the internals at some point might make accomodating
> >  > various different schemes easier.
> >  >
> > I dunno if you saw the discussion I was having on the list a while ago
> > about being able to do this, but only for reports.  If we generalised that to
> > *everything*, it would be an interesting possibility :)
> 
> If we did this, I'd probably want to make the flat account list a
> GList or a GArray, and make the "views" into it, a GList (or GSList)
> of GLists (or GSLists) which "bottoms out" in Account*'s.

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with GLists or GSLists, but the comment about
"'bottoms out' in Account*'s" makes me a bit nervous that it would only allow
entries into the "leaf" accounts.  There are times when it is convenient to
put some entries into a given "level", and others into a "sublevel", e.g.,
I might have "autos->pickup->maintenance" that catches most of the costs,
but if I wanted to keep track of, say, tires, these might go into
"autos->pickup->maintenance->tires".

> Seem's pretty straightforward, though I believe the point we stalled
> at last time was, given this setup, what do account names mean?  Right
> now, the full-name is an implicit part of the Group path used to reach
> it, but in this "new" approach, an account might appear in a variety
> of arrangements.  I think the right answer is that the Account name
> would need to be more descriptive, and probably enforced unique,
> something like "MegaBank Savings" rather than just "Savings".

I hope that you're just using the space delimiter in "MegaBank Savings" as
an arbitrary name.  One of the nifty things about gnucash as opposed to
Quicken is that I don't have to replace spaces in the account names with
underscores... (and I also don't have to stop at some tiny number [16?]
of characters!)

						Clark
-- 
Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed herein are mine and not necessarily
those of anyone else.  (As if anyone else would want them!)

Internet: jones@inficad.com		RF: KI7TU
ICBM: 33 22' 01" N 111 43' 52" W	Home Page: www.inficad.com/~jones