custom separate trading accounts

gnucash.133518b at telus.net gnucash.133518b at telus.net
Fri May 23 03:00:20 EDT 2014


On 2014-05-22 3:20 PM, Mike Alexander wrote:
> On the other hand you might want to look at the advanced portfolio
> report.  If you use the "average cost" basis method it might produce the
> results you need.  If not, it might be easier to fix it than to change
> the way trading accounts work.

I just started playing with the Advanced Portfolio report. I don't yet 
know if it'll do what I need to get ACB, but I'm already puzzled by 
something. I've attached an example GnuCash file to demonstrate it. If I 
open it in GnuCash 2.6.3 and generate an Advanced Portfolio report 
specifying a date of 2013-01-04, I get the following (transposed for 
better email formatting):

   Advanced Portfolio 2013-01-04		

   Account              Shares        Total
   Symbol                  SHA
   Listing               ASSET
   Shares                  100
   Price                $11.00
   Basis               $900.00      $900.00
   Value             $1,000.00    $1,000.00
   Money In          $1,300.00    $1,300.00
   Money Out           $450.00      $450.00
   Realized Gain        $50.00       $50.00
   Unrealized Gain     $100.00      $100.00
   Total Gain          $150.00      $150.00
   Rate of Gain         11.54%       11.54%
   Income                $0.00        $0.00
   Brokerage Fees        $0.00        $0.00
   Total Return        $150.00      $150.00
   Rate of Return       11.54%       11.54%

Notice that price of $11? You'll find in the attached file's Price 
Editor that $11/share is the price for 2013-01-05 but it should be 
$10/share for 2013-01-04. Am I wrong that this report should have Price 
= Value / Shares?

As for using this report to query ACB, even if it works it's a lot of 
extra UI clicking to get the ACB for any date other than the current 
date. The separate trading account method means one can simply look at 
the Trading:ThisStockAccount:CAD register and see the entire list of ACB 
values for all transaction dates.

I'll be honest here and say that recent threads involving the Cash Flow 
report have me a wee bit nervous about relying on reports for my 
methodologies. My possibly mistaken perception is that radical changes 
to report generation may be happening without consensus and/or without 
resolving disagreements by vetting against accounting standards. I mean 
no offence by that statement, but my newbie status for both GnuCash and 
accounting in general has me struggling to understand in some areas, 
especially for those areas lacking documentation (eg. trading accounts 
and reports).

Carl
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