Note: You'll need to update your code, I just fixed a bug that prevented
doing this.


On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 6:14 PM, Martin Blais <[email protected]> wrote:

> Here's one example in attachment.
> It requires you to look at
> (a) the total account value, by logging in to your broker, and
> (b) to compute the total number of "shares" you've accounted to that
> account.
> Then you can enter transactions with a current synthetic price for this
> new "fund".
>
> See attachment for a working example.
> There may be other ways to do this, I just came up with this.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 7:01 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Martin, thank you very much for your response.
>>
>> Although I'm familiar with the individual terms & concepts (read the vast
>> majority of the
>> project's documentation), I haven't been able to put the pieces of the
>> method you described together.
>> Would you be able to provide a brief example of how it might work?
>>
>> On Saturday, September 30, 2017 at 3:41:14 AM UTC+3, Martin Blais wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 10:31 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> First of all, thank you for this excellent project.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks John.
>>>
>>>
>>> I have a retirement account to which my company and myself contribute
>>>> with every paycheck. There is little control over investments in this
>>>> account. One can choose a generic asset allocation from a pre-defined list,
>>>> and contributions are automatically invested. There are no shares or
>>>> prices, only a balance that fluctuates due to contributions and investment
>>>> profit and loss.
>>>>
>>>> Due to the lack of transparency in this account I'm not quite sure how
>>>> to track it. A naive way might be to track the balance of the account using
>>>> its base currency, adjusting the balance according to periodic statements:
>>>>
>>>> 2017-01-01 open Assets:Bank:Checking  USD
>>>> 2017-01-01 open Assets:Bank:IRA       USD
>>>> 2017-01-01 open Income:Bank:IRA:PnL   USD
>>>> 2017-01-01 open Income:Company:Salary USD
>>>> 2017-01-01 open Income:Company:IRA    USD
>>>>
>>>> 2017-01-01 * "Payroll"
>>>>   Assets:Bank:Checking               900.00 USD
>>>>   Income:Company:Salary             -900.00 USD
>>>>   Assets:Bank:IRA                    100.00 USD
>>>>   Income:Company:IRA                -100.00 USD
>>>>
>>>> ; Adjust IRA balance according to quarterly statement
>>>> 2017-03-31 pad Assets:Bank:IRA Income:Bank:IRA:PnL
>>>> 2017-04-01 balance Assets:Bank:IRA   110.00 USD
>>>>
>>>> As far as I can tell this method would be sufficient for my current
>>>> needs (tracking the account's balance, profit and loss). However, I wonder
>>>> if there's a better way to track this sort of account?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I wouldn't do it this way, as this realizes the P/L.
>>>
>>> I think the way I'd handle this situation is by using a fake commodity
>>> for shares.  In order to compute the price of this synthetic commodity, I'd
>>> just work back the price of this commodity by looking at your reported
>>> account balance against how much cash you put in it (the cost basis). At
>>> any point in time, Beancount allows you to compute the cost basis and the
>>> broker provides the current market value. The price of those "shares", at
>>> that time, is market value / cost basis, and you would input that in when
>>> you want data points. When you make a contribution, ideally you would
>>> compute the price at that point in time and divide the cash by that price,
>>> in order to adjust the number of shares.  It's a little bit backwards, but
>>> at least it would allow you to compute returns.
>>>
>>> --
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>

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