The latest version (22.1.15) is adding Investments tab.
The purpose of this tab is to track book value and quantity of marketable securities (e.g. shares).
Currently, the tab is a simple register.
Purchase of investments can be recorded using a control account called Investments which gives access to appropriate sub-accounts.
Currently, there is no ability to automatically calculate realized gains or losses on disposal. I’m considering a few options.
Great Addition to the manager @lubos .
I have Some Suggestions on this: -
Please take my suggestions into your consideration.
@Omnipotent.inc, your suggestions will not match usage in all jurisdictions.
I totally agree with @Tut
This could be solved using custom fields. If this country-specific, then relevant custom field could be automatically provided by localization.
It will be possible to have more flexibility how investments could appear on cash flow statement. Right now, they are all financing activities.
There is going to be automatic calculation for gains and losses but you can always make manual entries to make adjustments if required. It’s similar how inventory on hand costing works. Manager will make automatic entries but you are free to make manual adjustments too.
@lubos will the user be able to select a choice account for gains and losses for every investment item/stock? Accounting standards (e.g IFRS) requires Gains and losses of some classes of assets to be recognized in equity and others in the income statement.
Unless I have missed something, it appears there will also be a need for a way to enter a starting balance (or historical cost basis) for an investment. Right now it seems the only method to enter cost is to create a payment to the investment.
Yes, custom fields could provide a solution but ability for a custom control account can be a better solution.
Waiting for this.
That’s OK
What About This @lubos
This is one small part of why I wrote that your suggestion would not work. In many, possibly most, cases, you do not know whether an investment will be held for a statutory long term or not when you make the investment. That determination comes after the fact.
Same issue.
Not most of the cases but only some of the cases.
As ,
Big Investors generally invest for a long term but sometimes they invest for a short term but they always know the possible holding period.
Small investor’s generally invest in units of mutual funds (generally for long term ).
And some retail investors are invest for short term and for this class of investors your point is valid that they don’t know the possible holding period.
@lubos said their will be more felexblity regarding this in future.
Both of those statements are absolutely unsupportable.
I am talking about my country not for the whole world. This may be unsupportable in rest of the world but it is the reality in my country.
Features in Manager must support the entire world.
I believe that one will find this a real rabbit hole for finding a sub-system that accommodates reporting requirements. Besides the question of realized gain/loss short v long term, companies (in the U.S. at least) may also chose accounting methods on either transaction date or settlement date. I ended up writing code (excel VBA) on imported brokerage account data to generate the JE’s I wanted for my own accounting in Manager. Statement reconciliation is also an issue as I am using transaction date accounting and the brokerage statement still shows unsettled sales as equity holdings in the account. Unrealized gains/losses are also subject to different journal entry methods based upon holding considerations. Unrealized gains/losses also need to be adjusted when a security is sold and the gain is realized. I am hopeful that you succeed. It will be a challenge.
Agreed.
Trying to internalize every possible accounting treatment for every possible investment class would be quite a rabbit hole. At best it could be a jack of all trades master of none but even then I don’t think the “all trades” part is possible – not even remotely.
Alternatively it could be a blank page approach where Manager provides all the tools necessary for the users to setup their investment accounts to their satisfaction. I really think that that’s the way to go. But we’ll have to wait and see.
And since many users are using inventory tab to manage their inventory with great deal of success, I think that would be a great place to start.
I would really appreciate if @lubos could throw this into a mega thread just like localizations so users can contribute and help come up with a thorough solution that avoids extraneous tabs and future patch work.
Features that may be considered by @lubos for the Investments tab include:
This is the point I wanted to make in my second comment. I have edited it to support this point.
Totally agreed.
But:
This can be handled by control accounts composed of investments.
Also, we need the ability to adjust the quantities without affecting value much like Inventory Write-offs. This is to account for stock splits and stock dividends.
@Ealfardan you are correct, stock splits are quite common. Perhaps adding a field for the unit cost would facilitate stock splits. You simply adjust the cost per unit and the quantity to achieve that result.
