Need user (and accountant) input on advanced portfolio report

[David T.]

I would vote for having fees set out in their own column, but including fees in
any calculation of "cost basis". As an investor, "cost basis" includes the fees
I have to pay. Most of the online sites that I have looked at support this
definition. The best of these is
http://www.streetauthority.com/terms/c/cost-basis.asp while
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/costbasis.asp notably does NOT mention
fees... 

Perhaps a report option could be a checkbox to include fees in cost basis
calcs, with a default on.

David

--- Paul Schwartz <pmjs1115 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Andrew Sackville-West <ajswest at mindspring.com>
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org; gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org
> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 3:13:59 PM
> Subject: Re: Need user (and accountant) input on advanced portfolio report
> 
> 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
> 
> I don't usually use the fancy wizards [don't trust them I guess]. To be
> useful the wizard would have to allow allocation of profit/loss to at least 2
> different income accounts, e.g., long term/short term capital gain. I figure
> mine out before starting the entry so that it is balanced and ends up in the
> right place for me.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> 
>      
>
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