default behavior of mutual fund accounts

[Dave Peticolas]

On 27 Jul 2001 23:08:00 -0400, Michael T. Garrison Stuber wrote:
> --On Friday, July 27, 2001 08:17:50 AM -0500 Bill Gribble 
> <grib@billgribble.com> wrote:
> > The good news is that the price is irrelevant for both accounting and
> > tax purposes.  What matters is the number of shares you own and the
> > amount of money that you paid or received for them, which your broker
> > and your accounts must represent exactly.
> 
> This brings up two nagging little issues I have with GNUCash.   I do 
> regular investment.  Thus I am often transfering some money from checking 
> to an investment account:
> 
> #1  Gnucash defaults the number of shares to the number of dollars I 
> transfered.  Thus if I invest 100, all of the sudden GNUCash thinks I have 
> 100 additional shares.  I would far prefer it if either (a) it used the 
> most recent available price or (b) it used share price from most recent 
> posted transaction.  Alternatively, if it could somehow save it so that it 
> doesn't impact the share balance  until the share count is updated that 
> could work too.

Is the with the transfer dialog, the register, or both?


> #2  The SplitLedger.c code defaults to correcting the value of the 
> transaction, not the price if I update the number of shares.  I always 
> begin with the money, then later (when I have a proper statement, or have 
> dug one up on the web) update the number of shares.  As Bill elucidates in 
> his email, the "price" is pretty meaningless.  The only thing that really 
> matters is the number of shares, and my cost basis.  I have a oneline patch 
> that "corrects" this behavior (I love open source! [On line 3116 change the 
> 2 to a 1] ).  Does this annoy anyone else?  Should this be turned into a 
> configuration option?  Is there a reason that it defaults to the value, not 
> the price?

Looking at the code, I think it's a bug. The second else should be an
'if else' and that should fix things. I'll make the change.

thanks,
dave