Online OFX import of Investment Statements

[David Reiser]

On Jul 15, 2009, at 12:28 AM, Martin Preuss wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Montag, 8. Juni 2009, Martin Preuss wrote:
> [...]
>> So I need some help: Could someone please explain what number and  
>> kind of
>> transactions and splits need to be created when importing investment
>> transactions? There seems to be special handling for REINVEST and  
>> INCOME
>> type investment transactions...
> [...]
>
> Nobody?
>
>
> Regards
> Martin
>
Sorry, I thought I read that you had a few example files...

At the very least:
Buying shares
Selling shares
Handling dividends and interest (Income)
Reinvestment (dividends are used immediately to buy new fractional  
shares, without the money stopping in the investor's brokerage account)

Splits would be nice, but they can be reported in a couple different  
ways, so they're a bit more complicated on top of the fact that  
sometimes money changes hands for noninteger splits ( a 3 for 2 split  
in an account that holds an odd number of shares, for example).

Before aqbanking checked and declined to handle investment accounts,  
dividends were handled correctly (in my experience). It's possible  
that I already had income accounts specified for those instances from  
prior libofx imports, so I'm not positive that the correct handling  
was all from aqbanking action.

For buys and sells, you'll have to make a choice about how to handle  
commission costs. Libofx 'bundles' the commissions and fees into the  
net cost or net sale proceeds. In the U.S. that's OK for tax purposes,  
so I haven't had any problems. But some folks may prefer having fees  
show up as a separate split (presumably a split in the transaction  
associated with the purchase or sale).

I'm not sure how the 'lots' function is intended to work. It would be  
a good idea to at least understand that plan so that you don't do  
something that impedes lots when they finally hit release status.

Dave
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net