custom separate trading accounts

Mike Alexander mta at umich.edu
Sat May 24 01:53:05 EDT 2014


--On May 23, 2014 12:00:20 AM -0700 gnucash.133518b at telus.net wrote:

> 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?

Exactly what options did you use to produce this report?  Reports 
aren't saved with the file so I had to guess.  If I pick a date of 
2013-01-04 I get something completely different (only 50 shares), but 
if I pick 2013-01-05, it's close to your report.  The only real 
difference is that the current value is calculated correctly.  In the 
report you quote above it's wrong since $11*100=$1100 not $1000.  At 
any rate I don't see anything to indicate the report is not working 
right.

The price is only used to calculate the current value which in turn is 
used to calculate unrealized and total gain.  Neither of these should 
affect your tax calculations if I understand Canadian taxes at all.

>
> 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).

Perhaps changing trading accounts like you suggest would be better.  If 
you want to work on this, be my guest.  You could test out your theory 
by creating the account structure you want by hand and see if it 
produces the results you need.  If so then working on producing this 
automatically might make sense.

As far as whether the reports will do what you want, I'll have to leave 
that up to others.  I'm not qualified to say whether or not they will 
satisfy Canadian (or any other) tax authorities.  If you (or anyone 
else) wants to vet them against accounting standards, then please do 
so.  I don't think they are as bad as you seem to think, but I would 
never pretend that there aren't problems and bugs.  Also, the fact that 
the cash flow report may (or may not) have bugs has no bearing on the 
advanced portfolio report.  They share no code except the basic report 
infrastructure.

          Mike
 


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