I think I now understand what's going on here. It's actually simple: because the commodity is priced in USD, Beancount is naturally calculating my profit in USD. The result is 1338.43 USD – which, at the current exchange rate on the sale date, is 1015.35 GBP.
But because I actually made the transactions in GBP, and the exchange rate has changed in the meantime, my actual profit is different (977.88 GBP). I'm not sure what the cleanest way is to resolve this. At present I can think of two options: 1. Use a 'false' FX rate for the profit/loss leg of the transaction, such as by using Beancount's @@ syntax. Example: Income:Investments:PnL -977.88 GBP @@ 1338.43 USD At first glance this seems quite elegant, but one disadvantage is that it will result in incorrect entries in the prices database for GBP/USD. 2. Add another leg for FX gains/losses (I'm not sure if Expenses is the right category) Example: Income:Investments:PnL -977.88 GBP @ 1.31820 USD Expenses:Financial:FXGainLoss -37.46 GBP @ 1.31820 USD The problem with this is that it looks like I made a profit on the FX difference, when I actually made a loss. I'm not sure how to resolve that. Does anyone have any better ideas? On Sat, 1 May 2021 at 20:54, Caesar Schinas <[email protected]> wrote: > Apologies, I made a minor error in my last message – my arithmetic doesn't > add up because I omitted to account for the FX fee of 6.60 GBP. > The point remains: the much larger 'error' of 49.38 GBP is unaccounted for. > > On Saturday, 1 May 2021 at 20:46:45 UTC+1 Caesar Schinas wrote: > >> But that's the thing: my income *wasn't* 1015.34 GBP, it was 977.88 GBP. >> That is the difference between the amount of 482.60 GBP that was debited >> from my account when I bought the shares, and the amount of 1467.08 GBP >> that was credited to my account when I sold the shares. >> >> So something else is amiss. But I can't work out what. (Unless it's >> totally incorrect exchange rates from my broker. But their web interface >> shows the same figures as the CSV from which I extracted the above data, >> and I'm loath to 'massage' the rates just to make the numbers fit, without >> actually understanding what's wrong.) >> >> >> On Saturday, 1 May 2021 at 20:18:53 UTC+1 [email protected] wrote: >> >>> Sale 11 175.81 1,933.91 >>> Cost 11 54.135 595.49 >>> 1,338.43 >>> >>> Proceeds 1467.08 1.3182 1,933.90 >>> PnL (1,015.34) 1.3182 (1,338.43) >>> 595.48 >>> >>> So you should have -1015.34 GBP as your Income, not -977.88 >>> >>> Of course, you would need an additional posting to absorb rounding >>> errors. >>> >>> On Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 5:14:40 PM UTC-7 >>> [email protected] wrote: >>> >>>> I've been using beancount for a while for my everyday transactions, but >>>> am only recently getting around to trying to import my trading activity to >>>> my ledger as it seems much more complex. >>>> >>>> I'm having trouble with accounting for profit/loss on shares which are >>>> priced in a currency different to the main currency of my trading account. >>>> >>>> My trading account is in GBP, but I often buy shares priced in USD. My >>>> broker handles the conversion, and charges me an FX fee as a percentage of >>>> the value of the trade. >>>> >>>> Here is an example: >>>> >>>> 2020-03-31 * "Buy 11 shares of Square" >>>> Assets:GB:Freetrade:GIA:Cash -482.60 GBP @ 1.23390 USD >>>> Assets:GB:Freetrade:GIA:SQ 11 S_SQ {54.13456 USD} >>>> >>>> ; ... >>>> >>>> 2020-11-16 * "Sell 11 shares of Square" >>>> Assets:GB:Freetrade:GIA:Cash 1467.08 GBP @ 1.31820 USD >>>> Assets:GB:Freetrade:GIA:SQ -11 S_SQ {54.13456 USD} @ >>>> 175.81000 USD >>>> Assets:GB:Freetrade:GIA:Cash -6.60 GBP >>>> Expenses:Financial:Fees 6.60 GBP >>>> Income:Investments:PnL -977.88 GBP @ 1.31820 USD >>>> >>>> All the figures are from my broker's reports, except for the profit >>>> calculation. >>>> For the profit I have simply subtracted the GBP purchase price from the >>>> GBP sale price, as this is the actual amount of profit I made (the actual >>>> net change in my account balance). >>>> >>>> However, the second transaction does not balance: >>>> Transaction does not balance: (49.3832800 USD) >>>> >>>> I am struggling to understand where the extra 49.3832800 USD came from >>>> (or went?), or how I can balance this transaction. >>>> >>>> I'm quite new to this. Can anyone give me any tips? >>>> >>> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/beancount/3Bp4ZgnqOvY/unsubscribe. > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/20b40ee8-50cd-436b-b402-e5e22e6ede11n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/20b40ee8-50cd-436b-b402-e5e22e6ede11n%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]. 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