<not-flame>
Having used ledger-likes (mostly hledger) for the past 2.5 years, I've come
to the conclusion that they are great for bookkeeping, and the format they
use is great and allows all the necessary information to be captured
(especially, since they have a tagging mechanism that allows you to extend
the syntax provided by the format).
However, the existing in-built tools have a lot of limitations for more
complex analysis, as is the case with lots, automated capital gains
analysis, differentiated costs bases (ACB for some, FIFO for others), etc.
I'm convinced all the necessary information for good handling of
investments can be eked out of the existing data with hand-coded tools and
tags (which are needed to say what lots should be treated as FIFO (most,
since most tax authorities seem to use this), as LIFO (if your business
uses this for inventory management), and what as ACB (non-speculative
currency exchange transactions, and in some jurisdictions like Canada), and
what should be strictly cost-basis (lot-designated transaction costs
associated with purchase/sale of lots)).
As things stand, given my lack of programming skills, I'm doing a lot of my
investment analysis (calculating capital gains, e.g.) by hand, using data I
enter using hledger-iadd (which makes data entry a breeze!), and the
first-level analysis (unrealized gains, which I calculate using trading
accounts) being spit out by {h}ledger. So I do find that useful. YMMV.
(And FWIW, I believe trading accounts are a very powerful idea that
unfortunately don't have enough integration into the ledger-likes. They,
used judiciously with sub-accounts, can even mimic lots accurately.)
</not-flame>
On Monday, 22 July 2019 21:50:08 UTC+5:30, Avinash C wrote:
>
> I'm trying to decide whether I can use ledger well for tracking
> investments.
>
> Looking at many of the messages to this board, and discussions on the
> --exchange related issues, it seems that it is very hard to use and
> understand ledger for investments tracking.
> Are there people using ledger to track extensive investments, and if so,
> are there any collected tips?
> Some docs suggest using trading accounts, but that seems to involve yet
> another complication.
>
> Things that would make investment tracking good:
> - easily enter purchases, sales, splits, return on capital, etc
> stock/mutual fund transactions
> - compute capital gains (I understand this part is not there - so have to
> enter specific lot sales and capital gains at each sale transaction? LIFO
> or such default would be useful)
> - reports that show amount of commodity, total cost basis, and current
> market value, and gain. Is this something doable using a custom report (I
> don't think there is any default report for this).
> - A discussion a few days ago mentions some confusion about --unrealized
> for a scenario that would be quite common
>
>
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