[GNC] GC Best Practices for Investment Management

[R Losey]

On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 12:17 PM Jediator <jediator at artemisspace.com> wrote:

> After dumping QB and using GC for couple of months, I started really
> enjoying its features and simplicity.  I noticed that a major feature in
> GC is the stock and investment management function, which I was
> hesitating to get into.  I'd like to hear from fellow GC users on the
> usefulness and best practices for using GC for investment management.
> Especially:
>
>  1. GC was developed in the 90's before many brokerage firms offer
>     portfolio management and analysis tools.  Is it really useful to
>     replicate your investment data in GC from your brokerage account?
>     What are the advantages does GC bring in doing this other than
>     calculating capital gain taxes/loss?
>  2. What types of direct reporting functions in GC for investment
>     management (Info in tool guide and online Wiki seems to be outdated)?
>  3. How do you compare GC with other open source products (e.g.,
>     Ghostpolio)?
>
> Thanks a lot in advance! -- JC
> -----
>


I dumped Quicken about 7.5 years ago and went with GnuCash and haven't
regretted it. I ran into problems importing my Quicken data, but then I
realized that I rarely go back in time very far, so I just used the ending
balances in Quicken to start out in GnuCash.

Investments are part of my holdings, so I've always kept them in whatever
financial program I'm using.

1. I use the brokerage reports for tax purposes (gain/loss/dividends, etc),
and not GnuCash. I'm not sure of the advantages; I just keep my balances
and transactions in GC for investments. Investments that didn't have too
many transactions, I re-entered from the beginning in GnuCash. Advantages?
Obviously, you cannot access your broker account if you are having internet
problems, but I can always pull up GC and see the transactions. Also, you
can use your own expense categories to track the changes in GnuCash, and
you can put notes by transactions - I use this and find it VERY helpful.

2. I don't use reports very much in GnuCash... honestly, many of them don't
work "out of the box" and need tweaking... this is my biggest complaint
with GC. I have managed to get reports useful to me to work.

3. I've not used any portfolio tracker, but I do keep spreadsheets for
things I want to know about investments -- such as, "What is my average
monthly income?" and various other things.

In reviewing, I don't know if this helps much, but it's my thoughts on GC
and investments.


-- 
_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com
Micah 6:8