On Saturday, November 7, 2020 at 11:06:44 PM UTC-5 [email protected] wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 7, 2020 at 10:56 PM Aaron Lindsay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'm working on getting various importers setup for my accounts and have 
>> hit a snag. After importing transactions from my brokerage's OFX files, I 
>> see messages like the following:
>>
>> mine.beancount:65467:   Transaction does not balance: (-0.02619 USD)
>>
>>    2020-09-24 * "DIVIDEND REINVESTMENT"
>>      Income:Dividend         -53.01 USD
>>      Assets:Brokerage:TICKR   0.491 TICKR {107.91 USD, 2020-09-24}
>>
>> It appears my brokerage does not specify the price with enough precision. 
>> I'm considering doing the math to calculate the price on my own and 
>> replacing my brokerage's value in the importer, but it feels a little 
>> 'icky' to be ignoring data from them... And how would I know I'm not 
>> introducing an error (i.e. getting my cost basis wrong if my importer 
>> miscalculates the price due to not subtracting out commission or something)?
>>
>
> The real question is whether they hold the number of rounded units or a 
> more precise fraction.
> I would call them and ask, and track the units as closely to what they do.
> (Is this Vanguard?)
>

Yes, it is Vanguard. I checked their website and it is no more precise... 
but I suppose you're suggesting they could even be accounting it internally 
with more precision than they're allowing me to view either via browser or 
OFX?

Let's suppose that they do hold it internally with more precision - what is 
my recourse given that I don't have access to that information?

Has anyone else seen an issue like this, or have any wise words on how best 
>> to work around it?
>>
>
> Make the tolerance larger, or use an extra posting to absord the rounding 
> errors.
>

I know the tolerance would work around some of them - but some of them 
would require tolerances larger than a cent, and I don't think I'm willing 
to do that. I'm also somewhat aggravated that GnuCash appears to have 
updated the price to 'fix' it under the covers, but that's another story...

So, it sounds like adding an extra posting to absorb the rounding errors is 
my best bet. My initial thought was to make it an 'Equity' account, but the 
documentation seems to discourage this:

> Although it is technically possible to explicitly book postings against 
Equity accounts the usual purpose of items in that category is to account 
for past changes on the balance sheet (net/retained income or opening 
balances).

But it doesn't seem a natural fit for any of the other account types, 
either...

-Aaron

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