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

[John Ralls]

> On Sep 7, 2015, at 5:08 PM, Philip Walden <pcwalden at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> John Ralls wrote:
>>> On Sep 7, 2015, at 9:52 AM, Philip Walden <pcwalden at comcast.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> John Ralls wrote:
>>>>> 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
>>> Hi John
>>> 
>>> Thanks for your swift reply. I think FIFO will work for me, but I am having trouble translating the "Concepts of Lots", the only documentation that I can locate, to the "View Lots..." screen functionality. For example, the screen menu button "Scrub" and what it does is not documented as far as I can determine.
>>> 
>>> I was hoping for some kind of tutorial/pointers about how the screen functions translate to the "Concepts of Lots". Maybe there isn't any?
>>> 
>>> Also, you mention a "manual" method not using the "View Lots..." screen. I cannot seem to find any other method, manual or otherwise, for "Lots" anywhere in gnc.
>>> 
>>> _
>> Philip,
>> 
>> The original subject of the thread you hijacked was “Chapter 8 - Investment accounts”. Have you studied that chapter?
>> 
>> Chapter 8 of the guide is really titled “Investments”, and the English version can be read online at http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_invest.html.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> John Ralls
> Hi John
> 
> Yes I have studied  Chapter 8 intently, particularly the 8.7 Selling Stock section. There is no mention of the "View Lots..." screen anywhere in that chapter.
> 
> The 8.7 section discusses manually creating a stock sell splits, but There is no mention of how to specify a lot associating the sale with a buy.
> 
> So I am assuming there is no documentation documenting how to use the "View Lots..." screen.
> 
> After some painful experimentation I have come up with a somewhat poor recipe to record lots and capture capital gains. The pain/poorness comes from trying to translate the "proceeds", "cost basis" and "gain/loss" from my broker account reports into the "sell price" and "commission" in gnc, such that the capital gains gets recorded correctly. However, I do not feel that is a gnc problem.
> 
> I'd like to thank "Mike" in a previous post for the clues to figure it out.
> 
> Here is the recipe I am going to use going ahead.
> 
> 1. record buy of stocks with care to get accurate cost of shares.
> 2. Actions > View Lots...: Select the added stock purchase record, press create lot.
> 3. record sell of same stocks. Do not follow Chapter 8.7 as it includes the gain/loss in the split. The split should only have the proceeds to the asset account, the commission, and the shares-price-sale.
> 4. Actions > View Lots...: Select the lot with the stocks just sold. The "Splits in Lot should show the selected purchase. The Splits Free should show the sale just created.
> 5. Select the sale in the Splits Free window.
> 6. Press the >> button to associate the Sale with the Buy.
> 7. Close the View Lots window.
> 8. An Orphaned Gain record should have bee automatically created with, hopefully, the correct gain or loss amount. Edit the record to direct the gain/loss to the appropriate short or long capital gain account.

Philip,

I meant to study Chapter 8 to understand how to do it manually. There is no documentation on the View Lots dialog box. What’s more, I’ve tried it a few times and found that it works well in simple cases and less well when there are overlapping buys and sells — but I’ve only tried it using the “Scrub Lots” button which does your steps 5 & 6 automatically. Since you seem to have worked out a semi-automatic approach I suggest that you create a fake book and test it out in the scenarios you expect. If it works consistently for you, great!

Chapter 8.7 doesn’t include the gain in the split, it creates a new split pair in the transaction. If you prefer a separate transaction that’s OK, just create the splits as 8.7 explains in a new transaction instead of in the sell one.

Regards,
John Ralls