Need user (and accountant) input on advanced portfolio report

[Andrew Sackville-West]

Hi list, 

I'm trying to clean up the mess I made of the advanced portfolio
report a couple years ago. To that end I need some information about
how it should behave. And yes, I know the report is horribly
broken... I'm getting most of that sorted, but as part of that I've
ripped most of the guts out of the report and need help with this
issue...

The specific question is the handling of brokerage fees. I realise
there are probably several answers to this and different ways to
handle it. I'm hoping to get it boiled down to a couple of sane
choices that could be easily put into a report option.

The first option I see is to completely eradicate evidence of
brokerage fees. Here is an example: 

Buy 100 shares @10 with a fee of $10. Enter a price a few days later
of $15 (woo hoo! 50% in a few days!). If I eradicate evidence of the
fees, it looks like this

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    100    $15   $1000 $1500 $1000    $0      $500              $0

then later you sell 50 shares at $20, paying a fee of $10 again. but
again, we're eliminating the brokerage fees...

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    50     $20   $500  $1000 $1000   $1000     $500              $500

This option gives a report that looks *only* at the stocks themselves
and their performance and ignores what you spent to get that
performance.

Another option: ignore the brokerage fees in the basis calculations,
but leave them in the moneyin/out calculations. This sort of
automatically shows how you did including the fees. so the first
example above looks like this:

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    100    $15   $1000 $1500 $1010    $0      $490              $0

where unrealised gains are calculated on the actual money moved not the relative
difference between current value and basis. you could also continue to
calculate the unrealised gains using the difference between value and
basis, so that it remains at $500?

the example after the sale described above

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    50     $20   $500 $1000  $1010    $990      $490              $490

note that money out is $990 because of the $10 fee taken by the
broker. 

A third option: include the brokerage fees in the basis
calculation. I'm not sure I understand all the ramifications of this,
but here is how I see the examples:

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    100    $15   $1010 $1500 $1000    $0      $490              $0

in this example, the money in represents the actual money into the
stock. If the new price hadn't been reported, it would look like this:

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    100    $10   $1010 $1000 $1000    $0      -$10              $0

and the sale from above

symbol shares price basis value moneyin moneyout unrealised-gains realised-gains ...
foo    50    $20   $505  $1000 $1000    $1000      $495              $495

Another possibility: put all the fees into their own column. That way
the user could determine what do to with the fees. In that particular
case, I would suggest that the fees be ignored in the other columns,
presenting a pure picture of just how the stock performed, and then
the total fees are presented. 

and so on and so on. There are obviously many many different ways this
information could be reported. 

I would appreciate some input so that this report can better conform
to what users expect and need. 

thanks

A
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