On Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 4:38:28 PM UTC-4 [email protected] wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 4:09 PM Aaron Lindsay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> I have a scary accounting question for Halloween...
>>
>
> oooOOOoOOoOoOoOOoO
>
>
>>
>> I have 8 years of GnuCash data I'd like to convert to beancount. The
>> problem is that, as far as I can tell, GnuCash doesn't track cost basis for
>> trades. Because of that, I'm having difficulty replicating the suggested
>> approach from
>> https://beancount.github.io/docs/trading_with_beancount.html. I am using
>> https://github.com/falsifian/gnucash-to-beancount and can 'successfully'
>> convert my data to beancount, but instead of specifying the cost basis,
>> purchases of investments end up looking like:
>>
>> 2014-10-31 * "BUY 1 SPY @ 200"
>> Assets:Current-Assets:Brokerage:SPY 1 SPY @ 200 USD
>> Assets:Trading:CURRENCY:USD 200 USD
>> Assets:Current-Assets:Brokerage -200 USD
>> Assets:Trading:NYSE:SPY -1 SPY @ 200 USD
>>
>
> Urg...
> This should be an improvement (despite the absence of cost basis):
>
> 2014-10-31 * "BUY 1 SPY @ 200"
>> Assets:Current-Assets:Brokerage:SPY 1 SPY @ 200 USD
>>
> Assets:Current-Assets:Brokerage -200 USD
>>
>
> Also, I'd create a cash sub-account for the cash portin.
>
> Sales are in essentially the same form, just in reverse. In this way, my
> Assets:Trading:CURRENCY:USD
>> account ends up being a weird combination
>>
>
> It's the aggregate P/L (without discounting commissions).
>
Isn't it only the aggregate P/L *after* I sell all positions? Otherwise it
also includes the cash used to buy my currently-held investments. Or maybe
I'm confused about the definition of "aggregate P/L"?
> of the total cost basis of all my current investments and the gains or
>> losses from previous investments. Obviously I have enough data here to
>> calculate the cost basis for *purchases* of investments,
>>
>
> Yes, something like this:
>
> 2014-10-31 * "BUY 1 SPY @ 200"
>>
> Assets:Current-Assets:Brokerage:SPY 1 SPY {200 USD}
>> Assets:Current-Assets:Brokerage:Cash -200 USD
>>
>
Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking of doing. And I think I've got
gnucash-to-beancount doing that for me now.
so that ought to be do-able with some modification of the
>> gnucash-to-beancount scripts, but I'm not sure how best to handle the
>> sales. I've been reading the beancount documentation and have found the
>> "FIFO" booking method - is that pretty much my only option at this point?
>> Are there any gotchas to using it in my case?
>>
>
> You could use that, but it's not necessarily going to match the P/L you
> declared in the past for each period (though the total P/L should be
> right). Personally I would gather my history and then try to manually match
> each of the sales, but I'm a maniac. bean-doctor context can help, by
> printing the available lots just before a transaction.
>
> How many sales do you have?
>
To be honest, I haven't been tracking my P/L much, if at all. Though I'm
even a little unclear on how GnuCash would derive P/L given the 'Trading'
account setup it uses - how are you assuming GnuCash calculates P/L when
you say it's not going to match beancount's?
Assuming they're all recorded in a consistent form (which I'm not sure I
believe), I have around 200 sales. I think I will probably end up letting
bean-count do its best using "FIFO" and go back behind it and check up on
the ones that I can find data for.
> As a bonus - if I end up using the "FIFO" booking method, is it possible
>> to get beancount re-write my .beancount file with the cost basis it
>> calculated internally for the sales?
>>
> My goal there would be to make the implicit cost basis on sales explicit -
>> and allow me to use STRICT moving forward without having to manually fix up
>> 8 years of transactions.
>>
>
> Yes. Just "bean-query print" your ledger and it will print out everything
> explicitly.
>
> I hope this helps,
>
It does, thanks!
-Aaron
Thanks for any pointers!
>>
>> -Aaron
>>
>> --
>> 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 view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/01dd4feb-9b9a-423b-bbee-d7a9d2613035n%40googlegroups.com
>>
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/01dd4feb-9b9a-423b-bbee-d7a9d2613035n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>> .
>>
>
--
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 view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/f3419875-8c5a-482b-b74e-5c2b157216a6n%40googlegroups.com.
