Handling Investment gain and loss

[aga]

On 22/05/16 20:04, Mitch Frazier wrote:
> While entering a number of investment transactions recently I realized
> that KMM doesn't actually have a way to record the gain/loss on the sale
> of an investment. I was thinking about implementing something to solve
> this but wanted to pass the idea past the list first.
>
> As a first step at a solution, I was going to add a couple more rows to
> the transaction detail in the investment register:
>
>    - A cost basis field.  This would be an amount field that is
>      used to determine how much the cost of the investment is
>      reduced by the sale. Initially this field could be pre-filled
>      by the average cost (based on the number of shares being sold).
>      If the entire investment is sold, this field would be fixed
>      and not editable.
>    - A gain/loss field.  This would be an splitable account field
>      for entering the category or categories for the gain/loss.
>      Splits are useful for allowing both short-term and long-term
>      gain/loss specifications on a transaction.
>
> The current implementation "hides" the gain/loss because the balance of
> an investment shows as zero when the share value is zero, regardless of
> the amount the investment is sold for.  Whereas, since the gain/loss is
> not recorded anywhere, the balance ought to be negative if the
> investment was sold for a gain and positive if sold for a loss.
>
> Mitch
>

I think the developers will need to comment on this proposal.  From my 
own point of view, it is not a functionality that I need, at least at 
present.  What's more important, though, is that it might be advisable 
for display of the extra fields to be optional, certainly from the 
perspective of a new user.

Allan