Importing from Quicken

[Charles Day]

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Richard Ullger <rullger at ntlworld.com> wrote:

>
>
> Charles Day wrote:
> >
> > That is a good question. I have not tried to enter shorts or covers in
> > GnuCash. Off the top of my head, it seems like you would need a
> "Borrowed
> > Shares:Security Name" liability account for which the underlying
> "commodity"
> > (GnuCash term) is the security being sold short. Transfer shares from
> that
> > account into your portfolio and immediately sell them. That would be the
> > short, leaving you with the cash you got from the sale plus a liability
> of
> > the borrowed shares.  For the cover, buy shares for the liability
> account.
> >
>
> When you short shares, your broker borrows the shares on your behalf and
> sells them. You do not actually realise any cash for the sale so you do
> not have that cash to go and buy more shares. When you buy to cover you
> receive the difference between the sale and the cover if there was a
> gain or your account is debited with the difference if there was a loss.
>

Ah, yes, I had forgotten how that worked. Had I actually gotten around to
shorting ANF a few days ago as I had planned, I would have known better. :(

Anyway, I'm sure there must be a fairly standard way of recording this type
of transaction in a double-entry accounting package. If there is not already
a GnuCash druid/wizard to drive the process, then that would be a nice
enhancement.

-Charles


> Richard.
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