Christophe,
I was going to reply with the detail to this email, but I decided to write
it up in my cookbook instead:
http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/cookbook
I've been fantasizing for a while about writing up detailed examples for
all the things I've discovered for myself about bookkeeping over the years,
and waiting to finish the whole document just hasn't served me well, might
as well deliver it piecemeal. So here I wrote up much of the "Stock
Trading" section for you, and I hope you will find it explains well how
this is meant to be booked in our systems, Ledger or Beancount the same (I
think).
Michael: I don't understand how it works in your example. You're entering
the positions with price conversion, using the @ sign:
2014-01-01 Details for shares
Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A 15 ShareA @ 20€
Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share B 5 ShareB @ 100€
Equity:Opening Balance
But his sale is using the "cost" syntax (with {}):
2014-04-01 Selling 2 ShareB
Assets:Bank:Check Account 240,00 €
Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share B -2 ShareB {100€} @ 120€
Income:Investments Gains
How does this work under the covers?
I'm not sure how Ledger works in this regard actually, I'd love to know, I
should probably dig in the source code. In my system, these are two
completely different kinds of events. The first one is a "price
conversion", such that no memory is maintained regarding the cost of the
units converted. The price/rate is used to balance the transaction but the
units are deposited in the account without associated cost. This is what
you would do, for instance, if you were making a withdrawal in a foreign
country, e.g. in JPY and then spend it locally: you never think of these
yen in your wallet as "being held at such and such" exchange rate, once
converted, they have no "cost" to them anymore, all the bills are just
"yen". (In fact, if you're homed in multiple countries and hold assets in
many places, holding currencies at cost creates incredible unnecessary
complexities, I'm quite certain this is not what's happening). These
conversion events are relatively rare in practice.
The semantics I attach to the second one is explained in a good amount of
detail in the link to my document above. But it requires that when I enter
a position, I say "this is held at cost" by virtue of using the {} syntax.
It then attaches the cost to the lot as it accumulates balances for each
posting of an account.
If someone could provide some insight, that would be interesting.
Finally, without the fix you provided in the github ticket, I don't
understand how you've been using the system to track capital gains until
now. With virtual transactions? How did this use to work?
Thank you,
On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 6:56 PM, Martin Michlmayr <[email protected]> wrote:
> * Christophe Schockaert <[email protected]> [2014-06-11 22:10]:
> > ; Details of shares at 2014/01/01
> > 2014-01-01 Details for shares
> > Assets:Investments:Stocks:Total Value
>
> This is incorrect (see below).
>
> > Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A 15 ShareA @ 20€
> > Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share B 5 ShareB @ 100€
> >
> > Then, I run "ledger --real -B -V balance", which returns:
> > : 5000,00 € Assets
> > : 5000,00 € Bank:Check Account
> > : 0 Investments:Stocks
> > : 300,00 € Share A
> > : 500,00 € Share B
> > : -800,00 € Total Value
> > : -5000,00 € Equity:Opening Balance
> > : --------------------
> > : 0
> >
> > That's fine. I understand that doing this, only the gains and loss will
> end in
> > the assets. I put the "Total Value" entry in order to see at a glance
> the value
> > of all shares.
>
> This "Total Value" entry is incorrect. It's not the total value, but
> the cost. You have share A worth 300 and share B worth 500. How did
> you pay for those shares? You either have to reduce cash, or your
> case, use Equity:Opening Balance.
>
> What you want is something like this:
>
> 2014-01-01 Details for shares
> Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A 15 ShareA @ 20€
> Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share B 5 ShareB @ 100€
> Equity:Opening Balance
>
> Also, -B -V doesn't make much sense together. -B is the cost (what
> you paid), -V is the current value (what it's worth now). Look here:
>
> 2014-01-01 Details for shares
> Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A 15 ShareA @ 20€
> Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share B 5 ShareB @ 100€
> Equity:Opening Balance
>
> P 2014-02-01 ShareA 30€
>
> bal 'Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A' -B
> €300 Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A
> bal 'Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A' -V
> €450 Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A
>
> > In my second try (case B), I wish to see the contribution of my stocks
> within
> > the assets (I don't know if that's a valid practice but it gives me an
> overview
> > of the whole money available a time "t").
>
> I don't know what you're trying to say exactly, but in any case, this
> is the correct accounting practice to use.
>
> > The, I sell some shares of stock B at a higher price, in both cases.
> > This is were problems rises for me.
> ...
> > There are a few things that bother me:
> > 1) The presence of the "Equity:Capital Gains", which I understand
> balances the
> > entry, but it is automatically added and I can't choose its name. I
> thought
> > the balance would go to the "Income:Investments Gains" in fact.
>
> These Equity entries ledger generates are wrong. This is bug
> http://bugs.ledger-cli.org/show_bug.cgi?id=712
> The good news is that John and I agreed on a fix recently. You can
> try the 713-costs branch and see if it does what you expect.
>
> > So, what's the status for this question ?
>
> There's a fix. We're just waiting for more people to test it.
>
> > 2) The left-over for "Share B" shows 260€, which does not render the
> fact that
> > I still have 3 plain stocks, which would at least value 300€ (from
> their
> > initial value), or 360€ for the current value.
>
> This is http://bugs.ledger-cli.org/show_bug.cgi?id=713
> which should be fixed on the 713-costs branch.
>
> > 3) I would like to have a view of the left-over value of the stocks, at
> time
> > "t". In "case A", the total still show "800€" which is the initial
> value,
> > and in "case B", I see 560€, which reflects the "800€-240€", but not
> the
> > sum of the 10 ShareA and the 3 remaining ShareB.
>
> I'm not entirely sure I understand, but with the 713-costs branch,
> you should get the correct result:
>
> bal 'Assets:Investments:Stocks' -B
> 600,00 € Assets:Investments:Stocks
> 300,00 € Share A
> 300,00 € Share B
> --------------------
> 600,00 €
>
> bal 'Assets:Investments:Stocks' -V
> 660,00 € Assets:Investments:Stocks
> 300,00 € Share A
> 360,00 € Share B
> --------------------
> 660,00 €
>
> -B is the cost: you originally paid 20 for A and 100 for B: 3 * 100 +
> 15*20 = 600
>
> -V is the current value. A is worth 20, B is worth 120: 3 * 120 + 15*20 =
> 660
>
> > However, I run into other issues, mainly that it only uses the last
> value, even
> > for the initial value, and if I mix the notation in "plain shares" (-2
> ShareB)
> > and the notation with attributed values (-2 ShareB {100€} @ 120€), they
> don't
> > get along very well.
>
> I'm not sure I understand.
>
> BTW, you use Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share A and
> Assets:Investments:Stocks:Share B
> as account names. General practice on this list appears to be not to
> use too many subaccounts. I'd just use Assets:Investments:Stocks for
> both. If you want to see what Share A is worth only, you can do
> -l "commodity == 'ShareA'"
>
> --
> Martin Michlmayr
> http://www.cyrius.com/
>
> --
>
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