[Kmymoney-devel] Converting shares

[Jack]

On 2013.12.09 12:42, Allan wrote:
> On 09/12/13 14:40, Jack wrote:
>> On 2013.12.04 19:39, Ian Neal wrote:
>>> On 05/12/13 00:06, Allan wrote:
>>>> On 04/12/13 23:32, Ian Neal wrote:
>>>>> Is there currently a way of converting one stock type into  
>>>>> another within KMyMoney?
>>>>> 
>>>>> The situation is that I have an existing stock holding, lets call  
>>>>> it Acme Class 1, and the company has decided to convert these all  
>>>>> into Acme Class 2 with a conversion ratio of 1:0.6
>>>>> 
>>>>> I cannot see any obvious way of doing apart from adding a sell of  
>>>>> Acme Class 1 and a buy of Acme Class 2.
>> 
>>>> I've never had to do this myself, but I think this is where you  
>>>> would use a split, where you enter the denominator in the quantity  
>>>> field, which would take care of the quantity adjustment.  However,  
>>>> then you have to take care of the change of name.
>>>> 
>>>> I would probably use remove and add rather than sell and buy.  
>>>> Whether you do the split before or after, is probably your  
>>>> choice.  There could possibly even be a case for a third, interim,  
>>>> stock, to receive the removed amount, do the split on those, then  
>>>> remove those and add to your real second stock.  Whether that is  
>>>> necessary, or better, or silly, is again your choice.
>> 
>>> I think I should probably create a new feature request for this  
>>> functionality.
>> I just opened bug 328575  
>> (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328575) as I just had the same  
>> issue.  For bookkeeping purposes, my broker opened a new account for  
>> me, and transferred several stocks to that account from my existing  
>> account, although no split was involved.
>> 
>>> Might even have a go at programming it, if I ever get the time.
>> 
>> What I did in this case was to do a "remove shares" to bring the  
>> total to 0.  I then duplicated the remove transaction, moved that  
>> transaction to the new account, and then changed it to "add shares"  
>> so it had exactly the same number of shares.
> 
> That makes four steps, and in Ian's case there is the further step of  
> doing the shares split.
> 
> I suspect that Ian is thinking of a single operation.  Your idea of  
> allowing stock transfers could perhaps be a part of that as long as a  
> share split is optionally included.

Just allowing the transfer saves three steps, and leaves a trail that  
makes more sense, instead of having to explain it in memos.  Stock  
split is an existing function.  While I suppose it would be nice to  
have a single transaction to include both, I suppose it depends how  
difficult it would be to implement.

However, reading Ian's original description, I don't see that he needs  
to transfer the stock to a different account.  It looks like he is  
trading X shares of StockA for Y shares of StockB.  I can think of it  
as selling StockA and buying StockB with the sell/purchase prices  
canceling instead of going through a brokerage account.  I suppose you  
could do the split before or after the conversion - but it seems that  
there is separately the need for a transaction to convert shares from  
one investment to another investment (whether within the same account  
or not) possibly with a multiplier/divider on the number of shares.

Ian - how badly have I mucked up what you actually need?

Jack