Need user (and accountant) input on advanced portfolio report

[Andrew Sackville-West]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 01:08:47PM -0800, Paul Schwartz wrote:
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Phil Longstaff <plongstaff at rogers.com>
> To: gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org
> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 11:57:50 AM
> Subject: Re: Need user (and accountant) input on advanced portfolio report
> 
> Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> > 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. 

 big snippage...

>  
> I like your 4th option best (fees in their own column).

I'm tending that way as well. It gives the most information with the
user getting a clearer picture. There is no need for the user to back
fees back out of a total somewhere. In any event, a nice column
showing fees is a good thing (though the report is getting pretty wide
now).

>  The situation is different depending on whether you are an investor
> or a business. The business can expense the brokerage
> fees/commissions while the investor must put those charges into the
> basis of the asset.  Thus the need for options somewhere in the
> configuration setup.

So its reasonable to include fees into basis calculations (or have an
option to that effect). But what about fees from a sale of the asset?
Do those become part of the basis as well? I guess, on reflection,
they are largely irrelevant to this report as we don't report a basis
on shares that are sold. It shows up in the realised gains column
instead. A purchase of 100 shares @ $10 with a $10 fee would show up
with a basis of $1010 while held. When sold for say $2000 with a $10
fee, they're no longer shown in the basis column (not held
anymore). Instead they show up as $980 realised gain
(2000-10-1010=980). 

That raises another question: how does the user get the basis for sold
stocks? This is a different kettle of fish I guess. You could run a
report before and after the sale with the difference in the basis
column being the basis for the sold items, but that's pretty
kludgey. But that is a discussion for another day/thread/report.


> 
> IANNA also but have studied the matter.

That's better than I've done ;-)

> 
> BTW, this is only valid for US accounting/tax laws.

yes. That's part of my motivation for keeping it simple. The more
clear, concise, simple information (that means not adding stuff in
anywhere unless explicitly requested) the better. There are many
users from many countries with different rules. 

Basis calculations are a fairly scary thing for people I think, though
they aren't hard to program. Having an option to add fees to the basis
would be a good thing as the calculations can be done quickly and
accurately. Pulling the fees out into their own column as well helps
explain what's going on. 

A
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