unexpected presence of a payee in an investment transaction

[Jack]

On 2016.06.14 17:36, aga wrote:
> On 14/06/16 20:59, Jack wrote:
>> I was tracking down a recent payment, and so was looking at the  
>> Payee Veiw for a payee "MetLife".  Most of the transactions are  
>> plain checks. However, there was one investment transaction.  It was  
>> for purchase of a security "METLIFE INC     COM" with the funds  
>> coming from the default brokerage account for that investment  
>> account.  Nowhere in the ledger do I see any mention of the Payee  
>> MetLife.  (Yes, it's the same company - I own shares in it, and pay  
>> it for insurance premiums - completely unrelated activities.)  I  
>> have not yet dug into the actual KMY file, but I'm really curious  
>> why there is any payee involved in a "buy shares" transaction with  
>> no fees involved.  I believe all the relevant transactions were  
>> imported by OFX, either direct connect or file import (libofx, not  
>> aqbanking).
> 
> Was it a recent transaction?  There was a time when a payee was  
> required, but that was removed by popular request.

OK, I finally looked into the kmy file.  Indeed, Metlife is a Payee,  
and METLIFE... is an equity.  It seems all the METLIFE investment  
transactions I looked at have the Metlife payee listed in one of the  
splits.  The payee is listed in the split for which the account is the  
brokerage account.  The other split has the equity as its account.  I  
assume this was originally done when a payee was required in investment  
transactions, and has remained in new transactions due to some matching  
magic.

So - my question is whether there is any way to actually see that split  
through the current user interface?  I have so far not found one.  Can  
anyone say for sure whether it would be safe for me to just manually  
change 'payee="P00743"' to 'payee=""' in those transactions?

Separately, is there any point in creating a wishlist to address this  
issue?  I know it won't get addressed any time soon, but is it worth  
keeping track of?

Jack