Advanced Portfolio and Profit/Loss

[AmigaPhil]

> Jannick Asmus wrote:
>
>> Thanks. Here another problem I could not solve yet: How is the sell of
>> shares appropriately accounted for sucht that the realized gains or losses
>> are shown in both the advanced portfolio and the P&L? Of course FIFO should
>> be applied.
>>
>> How is that done? Any help would be highly appreciated.
>
> Let's take an example to start.
>
> Last month, you bought 10 shares at 10 EUR.
> A week later, you bought 40 shares at 5 EUR.
> Finally, you sold 20 shares at 8 EUR.
>
> To register the gain/loss on a FIFO basis, you have to do that
> in two steps:
>
> - Sold the 10 shares you first bought:
>   (10 * 8 EUR) - (10 * 10 EUR)
>   Here you sold at loss (- 20 EUR).
>
> - Sold 10 more shares from the second lot:
>   (10 * 8 EUR) - (10 * 5 EUR)
>   Here you sold with a profit (+ 30 EUR).
>
> Register the two transactions in the shares account:
>
> Leave the 'shares' and 'price' fields empty for both transactions.
> For the first transaction, enter 20 in the 'sell' column.
> For the second transaction, enter 30 in the 'buy' column.
> Balance the 2 transactions with Incomes:Realised gains.
> (If you want to keep a separate track of profits and loss, you can
> also balanced the first transaction with something like
> Expenses:Realised loss.)
>
> There is an easier way to calculate profit/loss after you sell
> some assets:
>
> - Select the share account (do not open it, just hilight it),
> - From the menu: Action >> Show lots, then click on 'Check account'
>
> The gain/loss transactions are now added.  Edit them if you wish
> to select the proper account (Incomes/Expenses) you want to use.
>
> (Hope that's what you were looking for.)

I have to rectify...

If you book losses as Expenses when selling assets, the Advanced
Portfolio won't be able to handle this properly (At least with
GnuCash 2.2.7).


The A-P can (so far) only check if the profit/lost is credited as
Incomes:
 - a sell with profit (positive value)
 - or a sell at loss (negative value);

So if you want to see an accurate snapshot of your portfolio and have
the profits/losses right: keep using the Incomes type account (with
negative value in case of sell-at-loss).



AmigaPhil
(Sorry for my poor English: loose-lose-lost...)