Unit Trusts assistance development

[John Ralls]

> On Sep 17, 2017, at 12:27 PM, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) <hylton at conacher.co.za> wrote:
> 
> HI David,
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/09/2017 20:08, D wrote:
>> Hylton,
> <SNIP>
> 
>> I don't understand how this is different from a mutual fund or stock. Each has 'units' which have some currency value, e.g.,$5 a share.
>>> Each transaction is actually measured in currency as there is a
>> >price per unit which must be paid or received.
>> Again, I don't see the difference. In my example above, if I bought 10 shares, I would have a transaction for $50, I would own 10 such shares, that wouldbe worth $50.
> 
> John, whilst I respect your contribution i.t.o. development of GnuCash, I feel you certainly need to take a refresher course in customer service. For your information, I am well versed in accounting having completed the subject top of my class at high school and consequently also completed 1st yr university accounting where I am fully aware that Assets-Liabilities=Owners Equity yet Gnucash does not seem to follow GAAP(Generally Accepted Accounting Practice) rules. Personal attack noted and put aside as it does nothing to help the GnuCash product. Unfortunately we both made assumptions and all it did was make an ASS of U + ME.
> 
> My issue is related to the fact that I cannot create the account opening balances as at 31/08 from my paper statement which shows both the price, the number of units held and the closing market ZAR value of the units held in that particular unit trust asset.
> 
> Using either a Mutual fund or Stock, did not allow me to correctly show the opening ZAR value of my unit trusts. When I open a new account as a mutual fund, it mistakenly marks the ZAR value of this asset as negative. According to John a course in basic accounting would fix this, however nowhere have I ever seen an asset marked as a negative currency value.
> 
> Should I try and open a new account as a stock, the tab on the new account windows indicating Opening Balance' is greyed out, just as it is on a Mutual Fund?
> 
> I basically need to add a Current Asset called Unit Trusts which totals the ZAR value of its sub accounts, of which there will be five named AG-Bal, AG-E, AG-MM, AG-O, Cor-Balp each with an opening balance on the 31/08/2017 consisting of number of units to 4 decimal places, a unit price in cents to 2 decimal places/(ZAR to 4 decimal places) and a closing market value, in ZAR to 2 decimal places, which depending on the fund may/may not be the product of units x price i.e. the closing market value.
> 
> THIS IS THE CRUNCH:
> THE OPENING BALANCE ZAR VALUE OR THE CLOSING MARKET VALUE ON THE PREVIOUS DAY MAY/MAY NOT BE THE PRODUCT OF UNITS OWNED X PRICE
> 
> A single account on my paper statement shows:
> 
> Units: 6659.22
> Unit Price(cents): 2245.70
> Closing Market Value: ZAR 149546.01
> 
> I am hopeful, once I can get the Opening Balances completed, that I will then be able to figure out how transaction will be entered correctly so at least my assets don't show up as a negative.
> 
> Thankfully transactions seemingly follow the unit x price in ZAR cents = ZAR value added/withdrawn from fund.
> 
>> If there is anyone else
>> >who actually uses Gnucash for South African unit trusts, I would be most
>> >pleased to hear from you.
> 
>> I'd like to point out to you that John is one of the primary developers for Gnucash; his knowledge about how it works, and how it is intended to work, are pretty substantial. Thus far, you haven't shown that South Africa's unit trusts are in fact different from a mutual fund. Perhaps you could explain more clearly (with specific examples) how they are different, and we could proceed under more civil circumstances?
> 
> I have indicated to John that I am thankful for the work he has done, and continues to offer, for the Gnucash project.  David, as per your request I hope the example above helps illustrate how a unit trust opening value needs to be entered so as to correctly indicate the ZAR value of the asset to the account holder.
> 

Mr. Conacher,

Please stop copying your emails to the bug tracker. It is not the place for user support. I'd like you to re-close your bug. I'm not going to interact with it any further, so if you don't it will just stay open and ignored.

GnuCash's New Account dialog box doesn't allow opening balances on stock/fund accounts because it doesn't have the necessary fields, so you have to do it in the register after creating the account. If you've created currency accounts with opening balances then you've already got an account Equity:Opening Balances, but if you haven't, just create one by hand.

Let's take your amounts above as an example, supposing that you have 6659.22 units of AG-E with a basis of 149546.01 Rand.
You'll create two accounts, one of any currency asset type you like in Rand with an opening balance of 149546.01 and the other of type MUTUAL FUND with no opening balance. You'll create an opening transaction in the second account as follows:

Date         Description                        Account                     Shares      Price    Debit       Credit
17-9-2017    Opening Balance
                                                Assets:UnitTrusts:AG-E      6659.22              149546.01
                                                Equity:Opening Balances                                      149546.01


That's split view, but since it's a simple transaction you could do it in basic view as well:

Date         Description                       Transfer Account            Shares      Price     Debit       Credit
17-9-2017    Opening Balance                   Equity:Opening Balances     6659.22               149546.01

GnuCash doesn't actually record prices in transaction splits: It records the number of shares/units and the total value in the currency of the "other" account. The price for the transaction is calculated from the ratio of the two as a rational number and displayed as a decimal approximation of that number in the price column of the register. If you enter a number of shares and a price, GnuCash will calculate the value for you, round that value to the nearest ZAR-cent, then re-calculate the price to be the exact ratio between the number of shares and the final value. I've left the price column empty in the example above to emphasize that you want to enter the value rather than the price, but GnuCash will fill it in for you as soon as you leave the AG-E split (split view) or the transaction (basic view).

Regards,
John Ralls