Online OFX import of Investment Statements

[David Reiser]

On Jun 8, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Martin Preuss wrote:

[snip]
>
> 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?

I'm not well versed in these -- I can do a manual transaction entry,  
and libofx has done all the ones I've fed it correctly, but I'd be  
stumbling a bit to try to get the details right.

> There seems to be special handling for REINVEST and INCOME type
> investment transactions...

I believe that before aqbanking started checking and not touching  
investment ofx files, INCOME transactions were handled properly.  
Dividends (cash income from stocks) are the most similar of the  
investment transactions compared to ordinary gnucash transactions.

REINVEST transactions have to have some special processing. When  
dividend income is used to automatically buy more shares of stock (the  
reinvest transaction), the monetary amount in the ofx transaction is  
both income and expense (dividend income  and stock purchase expense).  
The ofx spec says that the <AMOUNT> field in a reinvest transaction  
will carry the +/- sign appropriate for a stock purchase. The sign  
convention is the reason behind the special processing for Reinvest  
transactions.

>
>
> BTW: Such a note might also be worth adding to the development wiki  
> (if there
> is one) for future reference.

Hmm. There's a wiki, some of which addresses things like release  
schedule. But I don't see a section that really looks like a  
development wiki.
>
> Thanks in advance
> Martin


Dave
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net