I have a marginable cash account with Interactive Brokers. If it has a positive balance, then it is an asset and I earn interest income. So I originally set it up something like this:
open Assets:IB 2000-01-01 * "Opening balance" Assets:IB 100.00 USD Equity:Opening-Balances 2000-01-01 * "Interest income" Assets:IB 2.00 USD Income:Interest But since the account is marginable, it can go below zero. At which point it switches from being an asset to a liability. Instead of having interest income, I have an interest expense. 2000-01-02 * "Withdraw lots of money" Assets:IB -500.00 USD ; this makes the account balance negative Assets:BofA 2000-01-02 * "Interest payment" Assets:IB -2.00 USD Income:Interest ; or should I start putting Expenses:Interest here instead? Now, I realise that at some level Assets and Liabilities are the same things just with different signs. And the same is true-ish for Income and Expenses. So I guess I'm looking for advice on best practices or experience from people who've done something like this before. 1. Should I bother setting up a Liability:IB and use that when the balance in Assets:IB goes below $0? 2. Should I bother using Expenses:Interest versus Income:Interest (but with the "wrong" sign)? Has anyone found any real pros or cons in actual use between these approaches? Are there things that are easier or harder with one approach versus another? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/71958c8f-f6f6-454f-bf5d-66d5681eb4f8%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
