Beancount users!
I've just fixed a long-standing bug that's been driving me crazy and that
has a high impact on usability, I need to bring this to your attention. In
fact, this fix is so important I've decided to make an exception on new
code in v2 and put it in that branch so you can all enjoy it immediately.
doctor: Use parsed transaction to improve context on invalid transactions.
The "bean-doctor context" command didn't use to work on transactions with
errors. This is because the booking code is pretty opinionated about
outputting
only correct results and transactions that had postings that couldn't be
resolved unambiguously were produced without those postings.
The context command was attempting to use those incomplete booked
transactions and failing to find the accounts. So on an input like this,
which
is common:
2021-01-28 * "(TRD) SELL TRADE" #liquidation-2021
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB -15 FB {} @ 282.6100 USD
Expenses:Financial:Fees 0.09 USD
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:Cash 4239.06 USD
Let's say the stock account is configured in 'STRICT' booking mode and the
input
is ambiguous. You would get an error like this:
...filename...:57895: Ambiguous matches for "-15 FB {}": 15 FB
{179.3700 USD, 2018-08-30}, 100 FB {179.4100 USD, 2018-08-30}
2021-01-28 * "(TRD) SELL TRADE" #liquidation-2021
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB -15 FB {} @ 282.6100 USD
Expenses:Financial:Fees 0.09 USD
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:Cash 4239.06 USD
and "bean-doctor context" was producing this, which was thoroughly
unsatisfying:
bean-doctor context blais.beancount 57897
Hash:dfe2f18a91b4896d7474bd4518fcadd6
Location: /home/blais/r/q/office/accounting/blais.beancount:57895
------------ Balances before transaction
------------ Transaction
2021-01-28 * "(TRD) SELL TRADE" #liquidation-2021
Tolerances: CAD=0.005, USD=0.005
------------ Balances after transaction
This left you with no information whatsoever about the prior state of
accounts,
which in the case of having a 'STRICT' booking strategy, is PRECISELY what
you
would want. Super annoying.
So for years, I've gone fishing for my lot history by hand and I've grumbled
quietly to myself about how annoying this is. It even led to scripts like
this
one to go fish for the lots automatically:
https://github.com/beancount/beanlabs/blob/master/beanlabs/scripts/print_lots.py
I've just found a simple way to fix it: I'm fetching the incomplete
transaction
from the parser, and I'm now including it in the context output, and using
the
accounts it provides to produce the before balances. You now get the
balances
even if the transaction has an error, and you can use that to insert the
specific lots you want. The new output looks like this:
** Transaction Id --------------------------------
Hash:dfe2f18a91b4896d7474bd4518fcadd6
Location: /home/blais/r/q/office/accounting/blais.beancount:57895
** Balances before transaction --------------------------------
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB 15 FB {179.3700 USD,
2018-08-30}
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB 100 FB {179.4100 USD,
2018-08-30}
Expenses:Financial:Fees
1563.650 USD
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:Cash
116141.83 USD
** Unbooked Transaction --------------------------------
2021-01-28 * "(TRD) SELL TRADE" #liquidation-2021
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB -15 FB {} @ 282.610 ;
Expenses:Financial:Fees 0.09 USD ; 0.09 USD
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:Cash 4239.06 USD ; 4239.06 USD
** Transaction --------------------------------
2021-01-28 * "(TRD) SELL TRADE" #liquidation-2021
** Residual and Tolerances --------------------------------
Tolerances: CAD=0.005, USD=0.005
** Balances after transaction --------------------------------
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB 15 FB {179.3700 USD,
2018-08-30}
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:FB 100 FB {179.4100 USD,
2018-08-30}
Expenses:Financial:Fees
1563.650 USD
Assets:US:Adelitrade:Main:Cash
116141.83 USD
You get the unbooked transaction with its missing invalid postings (in this
case, no postings at all), and the one from the parser.
This is a HUGE improvement in usability, because this provides you with a
convenient method to obtain the lots you need to cut-and-paste in your
input if
you're using the specific tax lots ID method, right there from Emacs.
I hope some of you enjoy this.
The corresponding commit is here:
https://github.com/beancount/beancount/commit/06127f16e05c6bfa286eef6b5f7fc9ba653fad53
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