On Sun, Oct 19, 2014 at 6:12 AM, Tom Jones <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I am currently evaluating ledger, and other applications in the ledger
> family, for a business where the majority of transactions involve one or
> more currencies other than the (tax) unit of account. My questions apply
> equally well to situations involving inventory, share portfolios, and so
> on, except perhaps for the number of different "lots" in existence.
>
> I've read the ledger 3 manual, and also the "Trading with Beancount"
> document.
>
> As far as I can tell, allocation of sold units to bought units for the
> purpose of cost basis is a manual process. In order for the gain to be
> calculated, I have to determine what lot(s) are involved, and refer back to
> those. Is my understanding correct?
>
Yes. That is the current situation.
Is there a way to say to the software "gains on commodity X are to be
> calculated on a FIFO basis", and have it do the work for you?
>
Not yet, but I've laid out a plan for how to do this and came up with this
idea:
furius.ca/beancount/doc/proposal-inventory
If every transaction involves the creation of, and disposal of, one or more
> lots, this is a lot to keep track of, and it seems like work the computer
> should be able to do.
>
> To try and construct a minimal example, if we have this:
>
> 2014-10-15 buy widgets
> assets:inventory 10 widgets
> assets:GBP -80 GBP
>
> 2014-10-15 buy another widget
> assets:inventory 1 widget
> assets:GBP -9 GBP
>
> 2014-10-16 sell a widget
> assets:GBP 11 GBP
> assets:inventory -1 widgets
>
>
> then is there any way the software can compute that the sold widget has a
> cost basis of 8 GBP, if it is asked to use the FIFO basis for widgets?
>
The way this would work is that you would specify a default method to for
inventory booking and you would leave the lot specification as ambiguous,
so that it triggers the default method, like this:
2014-10-15 * "buy widgets"
Assets:Inventory 10 WIDGET {} ;; Price inferred to 8 GBP/widget
Assets:Cash -80 GBP
2014-10-15 * "buy another widget"
Assets:Inventory 1 WIDGET {} ;; Price inferred to 9 GBP/widget
Assets:Cash -9 GBP
2014-10-16 * "sell a widget"
Assets:Cash 11 GBP
Assets:Inventory -1 WIDGET {} ;; Ambiguous lot
Income:Gains
In the first two transactions, because there is a single number missing, it
should eventually be able to infer what the price is. I believe Ledger can
already do this in the simple case; Beancount doesn't yet fill in missing
costs or prices (it's laid out in the same proposal). In Beancount you'd
have to at least provide "{}" to indicate that these units are to be held
at cost and that this isn't a price conversion.
In the last transaction, because you are intending to dispose of a lot (and
this is inferred by the sign of the current position in "WIDGET", which is
+11, and the sign of the change, which is -1 and the inverse of the current
one), and because there are more than a single lot that matches your
ambiguous specification ("{}") at that point in time (10 WIDGET {8 GBP} and
1 WIDGET {9 GBP}), the resolution is ambiguous. An ambiguous lot match
would trigger the default booking method for that account, whose default
value would be set to something that tells Beancount to raise an error
(call this "STRICT" booking method). However, if you override the default
value for that account to be "FIFO" instead (once, in the Open directive
for that account), it would automatically select the lot with the earliest
date (1 WIDGET {8 GBP}).
Finally, note that you will need a posting to absorb the 3 GBP gain
("Income:Gains") in order to balance the transaction.
I'm assuming that in your example you specifically chose to acquire the two
lots on the same date. The position in the file (the line number) would be
chosen to further disambiguate which of the lots came earliest. (I hadn't
thought of this, I've added this to the proposal.)
You will find much more detail at the document.
I'd appreciate your feedback on it (as comments in the margins),
>
> thanks, Tom.
>
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