Unit Trusts assistance development

[Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC)]

Dear John,

On 10/09/2017 16:10, John Ralls wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Sep 10, 2017, at 1:26 AM, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) <hylton at conacher.co.za> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am a new user of Gnucash 2.6.17 on a Mac and after many years using the earlier versions (95/98) of Quicken on Windows Have started a fresh set of accounts on Gnucash, for personal use, since the 1st Sept.
>>
>> I have managed to operate my way through how different the app works, and am actually enjoying the learning experience.
>>
>> In the years previous to this I have invested funds in several unit trusts, or what I believe some call, Mutual Funds.
>>
>> I would like to add the current balances of the unit trusts as opening balances in Gnucash however despite reading the on-line manual and doing some Google searching as well as Bugzilla searching, have been unable to successfully create the following unit trust type of account hierarchy, as the account type is not specified.
>>
>> Further delving into the app trying to use either 'Stock' or 'Mutual fund' did not assist as then I needed to select the 'Security/Currency'. When I clicked on Select it only showed non-currency related items, and none of them in south Africa. As my country currency is not listed, despite being listed if I choose to add an 'Asset' account.
>>
>> The composition of the units purchased is decided by the parent company from which you are buying the unit trusts. The money given to the company for the purchase of your units is invested in a variety of assets that should provide a return i.e. gold bullion, stocks purchased in a particular range of companies, bonds etc.
>> As the value of those investments increases i.e. those companies invested in are now worth more, so the value of a unit trust unit increases.
>> The parent company has absolute discretion on where and when it wants to invest your money and so manages the risk and ensures a positive return on investment, allowing them to take a fee of the profit earned.
>>
>> A unit trust will normally be traded in the home country currency but may be traded in a completely different currency i.e. whilst the home currency is ZAR, I may have a unit trust that is traded in GBP. A unit trust consists of units purchased, usually to 2 or 3 decimal points i.e. 0.01 or 0.001 but some might be more, a price per full unit and then the currency value of the total units held in that particular named unit trust.
>>
>> I believe this unit trust account type needs further development work and wonder if there is a work around?
>>
>> I have raised a feature request
>> <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=787493>
>> to request this further enhancements to Gnucash.
> 
> You believe wrong.
> 
> One accounts for units in a unit trust as units. Please STUDY the Tutorial and Concepts Guide, paying particular attention to the chapters on Investments and Capital Gains, where you’ll learn how to use GnuCash to account for non-currency assets.
> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls

You are incorrect.
You account for your investment in units, expressed as having a currency 
value. Each transaction is actually measured in currency as there is a 
price per unit which must be paid or received. I tried to enter the 
investment as a mutual fund but the price calculation would not allow me 
to enter in values to 4 decimal places. After changing decimal places in 
the settings, I saw no change. Despite your advice and your inability to 
understand my mention that I had read and STUDIED the documentation and 
tried Google searches, I tried many methods to get the unit trust 
accounts to display properly, Gnucash is just not currently suitable for 
unit trust accounts, in my opinion, even if the account is marked as a 
Mutual fund or Stock, of which it is neither. If there is anyone else 
who actually uses Gnucash for South African unit trusts, I would be most 
pleased to hear from you.

Again John, thank you for taking it upon yourself to close my bugzilla 
post before doing any investigation into the matter or even waiting for 
a reply from the original poster. So much for you using the community 
user platform to improve the product.

I have reopened the request and will close it once I am able to 
accomplish what I require, whether it be by step by step instructions or 
further application development.

Let's make Gnucash great again.

Hylton
>