Chapter 8 - investment accounts

[David Carlson]

On 4/27/2014 9:47 AM, Jamestk wrote:
> Thanks David, interesting points you make.
>
> It really looks like an after thought which has been tacked on rather than
> being designed in from the outset. 
>
> There's too many loose ends for it to be a design feature which is why it's
> so confusing to administer. Exporting to a spreadsheet at the end of your
> tax year would be a lot quicker where you could calculate the gains and then
> deduct expenses. This is not too different to what you would have to do
> anyway, the capital gain/loss is entered as a gross figure which still
> requires expenses to be deducted.
>
> Is there anyway to delete these splits easily or is it a case of going to
> each transactions manually?
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
>
>
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I want my reports to show reasonable net worth and asset distribution on
arbitrary dates so I try to enter purchase transactions on a timely
basis.  Then to get the stock positions to close with zero value and
zero shares in reports requires the correct realized gain or loss in
each lot/position.  This arises from the implementation of double entry
bookkeeping and correct accounting for realized versus unrealized gains
and losses in the equity section of the balance sheet.  I guess that is
why accountants get paid big bucks.


I think if you try to omit the detail and do a summary at year end you
will not get correct information during the year.  However, if you omit
the detail, it will not be there at year end to export, so you need a
separate way to track it.  If that is ok for you, so be it.  The main
thing is to be comfortable with the method that you choose to use.

And yes, you can only delete one transaction at a time.  Splits must
always add up to zero within each transaction.

David C