Need better documentation on using Lots [Was: Chapter 8 - investment accounts]

[John Ralls]

> On Sep 6, 2015, at 3:04 PM, Philip Walden <pcwalden at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> WRT the "Concepts of Lots", per the discussion below I want to use lots in my stock accounts, but the document "Lots Architecture & Implementation Overview" only talks about the concept and does not give many clues as to how one should use the View Lots... screen.
> 
> For example, what does Scrub Account do? What does Scrub (a record) do? What does the Splits Free and Splits in Lots mean or do.
> 
> I have experimented several times only to get confused as to what is happening and end up backing out the work for fear of going down a rat-hole and ruining my stock gain/loss reporting integrity.
> 
> I sort of understand the concept, but how is it implemented in the View Lots... screen? I cannot find anything helpful in the tutorial.
> 
> My particular circumstance is that I have many old stock holdings in several accounts with lot tracking done on paper. I'd like to get them into gnc if I can. So the "automatic" scrubbing and lot set up does not seem to work for me as I already have prior lot database I'd like to enter; and then it could be that I just do not understand the View Lots... screen and its nomenclature.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help or pointers

AS you probably know there are a variety of strategies for grouping lots and for deciding which lot is the one you sold. GnuCash supports exactly one: A lot consists of a single buy transaction and sales are first-in, first-out. If that’s not what you want, you have to handle all of it manually and ignore the View Lots dialog.

Regards,
John Ralls