Book clsoing [was: Re: Addition of HBCI support, Maturity of
1.7-branch, next stable release time frame?
Michael T. Garrison Stuber
garrisonstuber@bellsouth.net
Wed, 17 Apr 2002 20:34:18 -0400
--On Wednesday, April 17, 2002 02:12:38 PM -0400 Derek Atkins
<warlord@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> Every time you buy shares (widgets, inventory, whatever) you create a
> new lot. As you sell your shares, you tie your sales into specific
> lots. Due to the one-lot-per-Split limitation, if you sell from
> multiple lots in one Transaction then you wind up requiring multiple
> Splits in the Transaction, one Split per lot.
>
> For example:
>
> Date Desc Lot Buy Sell Price Value
> 1/1/01 XCORP 187 500 $10.00 $5000.00
> 2/1/01 XCORP 188 500 $12.00 $6000.00
> 1/1/02 XCORP 187 250 $20.00 $5000.00
> 1/1/02 XCORP 188 250 $20.00 $5000.00
> 2/1/02 XCORP 187 200 $19.00 $3800.00
>
> There are three Transacations, but four Splits into the XCORP Stock
> Account. What this means is that on 1/1/01 you buy 500 shares at $10;
> on 2/1/01 you buy 500 shares at $12. You have two lots, one for each
> purchase. Then on 1/1/02 you sell 500 shares at $20, selling 250 from
> the first lot and 250 from the second lot. Finally on 2/1/02 you sell
> another 200 shares from lot 187 at $19.
>
> The way a "lot" is like an Account is when you look at it from the LOT
> View:
>
> Lot 187:
> Date Buy Sell Price Balance
> 1/1/01 500 $10 500
> 1/1/02 250 $20 250
> 2/1/02 200 $19 50
>
> Lot 188:
> 2/1/01 500 $12 500
> 1/1/02 250 $20 250
>
> As you can see, the lots are acting a lot like accounts in terms of
> keeping a balance of the number of widgets. When the balance reaches
> zero, the lot has been completely sold and you no longer need to keep
> the information around. If the balance is non-zero, then you need to
> keep the balance, purchase-date, and purchase-price around for the
> lot-basis.
Thanks. This was very helpful -- assuming of course you and Linas are on
the same page. Having to put in an extra split for a sale across lots is a
little counterintuitive, but I can't think of another way to do it which
doesn't have really ugly implications.