[kmymoney] [Bug 450152] "Dividend income" box appears in wrong places

[Paul Gover]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=450152

--- Comment #2 from Paul Gover <pmw.gover at yahoo.co.uk> ---
Problem still there with kmymoney-5.1-22-linux-centos_64-gcc.AppImage

In the following, I ignore Date and Memo fields; they're always there.

Working out what "should" happen has been a learning experience for me.  It
seems to be, in part, a UK vs US difference, explained below.

Actual behaviour:

I set up a new KmyMoney database, added Investment accounts from the setup
wizard,  and an equity account under Investments.  To that I added one equity. 
New->Buy shares.  The panel that appears has entry fields for Activity-Buy
Shares, Security, Account, Fees category and amount, Interest category and
amount, and Memo, Date, Shares, Price/share.  I entered a number of shares, a
price, a fee amount (account Commissions), and some Interest (category Dividend
Interest).  It accepted all the input, but ignored the Interest amount.

Trying Reinvest Dividend, the field for Account disappears, as do the amount
fields for Fees and Interest, even if I set their categories to something
sensible.  I can enter some numbers using the split transaction facility.  The
Fees amount gets included in the transaction, but the Interest is set to
Shares*Price + Fees, irrespective of anything I entered as a split transaction.
 That appeared in the Dividend Income category, where I'd sent it, so at least
it's consistent.  You can't enter the transaction without specifying an
Interest category.  Even if you specify a Fees category, there's no box to
enter the number; you have to use the split transaction facility.

Expected behaviour:
Buy Shares should have no Interest category or number, and simply take money
from whichever account was specified, that money being Shares*Price + Fees.

For Reinvest dividend, having dug around on the Internet, I think it may be the
US vs UK (and presumably elsewhere) difference.  US companies seem to be happy
to issue fractional shares, so they appear to offer Share Reinvestment programs
that work as the existing kmymoney method - the "number" of shares is
(Dividend/Price) and can be fractional.  I think that could happen with UK Unit
Trusts (they have a new name these days; whatever), but not with normal
Equities, and I was trying to handle the Dividend Re-Investment Plan (DRIP) of
a normal UK equity.

UK Equity DRIPs work by having a cash account for each participating
shareholder, integer share purchases, and the residual between the Dividend
paid and the (Shares*Price) cost going to or coming from that cash account.

I guess if kmymoney were to handle this UK usage, what should happen would be:
There should be Security, Fees category and amount, Interest category and
amount, Residual category (no amount), Shares and Price.
The Interest would go to the Interest category;
(Interest - (Shares*Price + Fees)) would go to Residuals category
(Shares*Price+Fees) would be handled as a normal Buy Shares;
effectively, this is a split transaction funded by Interest and Residual.  The
split is to ensure the database records the correct Dividend interest received,
so the Investment performance report is correct.

Working that out (and it's taken me a couple of hours) explains why I couldn't
understand one of my broker's reports!  They effectively have brokerage account
per security, and when the amount therein is sufficient, they buy shares from
that account, which, AFAIR they call "Cash".  I handle that broker's report
items as two transactions, a Dividend and a separate Buy Shares.
Conversely, a few of my direct holdings provide their own DRIP, and they are
the ones I'd handle as written above.

I guess if that's not easy to implement, I can just handle these DRIPs as two
transactions.  But the kmymoney handbook needs expanding in either case to
explain more about how it handles Divident reinvestment activities.

Hope that all makes sense....

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