[GNC] Advice on investment accounts

[A Harvey]

Calculating the performance of an investment is not simple if
cash/shares/etc. are added to and/or removed from the account during the
period of interest.
For example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return.
-Arthur

On Mon, Jan 16, 2023 at 12:39 PM Murugan Muruganandam <
m.muruganandam at hotmail.com> wrote:

> hi Steve
>
> Gnucash supports pension funds tracking fully. and i  handle the pension
> investment as a mutual fund and register my monthly contribution as units
> invested by the pension operator. (not sure how it is done at your place).
> The fund prices are always published by companies and you can use the Price
> database under tools to update the pricing.
>
> You can use the Advanced Portfolio Report to view your fund performance.
> if you want for a specific date, you can click on opitons and choose the
> date you want to view the results.
>
>
> The loss or profit on the fund is always un realised and should not be
> taken to Income or Expense account unless you are drawing down any units.
>
>
>
> Saludos Cordiales
>
>
> Murugan
>
> ________________________________
> From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+m.muruganandam=
> hotmail.com at gnucash.org> on behalf of Steve Hill <steve at nexusuk.org>
> Sent: Monday, January 16, 2023 8:32 AM
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: [GNC] Advice on investment accounts
>
>
> At the moment, I handle investments (e.g. my pension) as normal bank
> accounts.  At the end of each year I receive a statement and I add a
> transaction into the account such as "Interest (5.05%)" which transfers
> the interest from an Income account (or to an Expense account in the
> event of a loss).  I calculate the interest rate that I have received
> and add it into the transaction description (e.g. "5.05%" in the example
> above).
>
> This means that I can easily see how the account has performed,
> irrespective of how much I have deposited over the year by looking at
> the % interest rate that I have noted in the description.  I can also
> see how much (in my currency, GBP) the account was worth at the end of
> each year.
>
> I want to switch over to using Gnucash's "Mutual Fund" and "Stock"
> account types.  But there doesn't seem to be equivalent functionality:
>
> 1. Since the security isn't actually being bought/sold at the end of
> each year, the gains/losses for the year are unrealised so there won't
> be an "Interest" transfer.  I guess I could add a blank transaction to
> note down the % interest that they year's gains/losses equates to, but
> is there a better way?
>
> 2. I can't see an easy way to see what the account was worth (in GBP) at
> a specific point in the past.  I can add a "Total (GBP)" column to the
> main accounts page, which would tell me how much it is currently worth,
> but not how much it was worth in the past.  It seems that an extra
> column in the account itself showing its total value at the time of each
> transaction would be a solution, but there doesn't seem to be a way of
> doing this?
>
> I presume this functionality is buried somewhere in reports - seems
> significantly more clunky and hard to use than it just being available
> on the account's own tab?
>
> Many thanks.
>
> --
> - Steve
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