[Kmymoney] dealing with investment accounts

[aga]

On Wed, 22 May 2013 12:32:26 -0400
Jack <ostroffjh at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> On 2013.05.22 11:49, Gary Kirkpatrick wrote:
> > How do I deal with an investment account that is called a Cash  
> > Management Account?   When I set it up online the institution
> > called it an investment acct but since I have never figured out how
> > to reconcile them and since we use it for cash so I told KMM it was
> > a cash account.  But we did transfer some bonds from the other  
> > account.  So can I just do this off the cuff and make up a  
> > transaction for the bond bit or do I need to set up an investment  
> > acct?  If so, do I then need a brokerage account?   Eesh!
> > 
> > In any case  I do need to learn how to reconcile investment
> > accts. Is there some document that you'd suggest to guide me?
> Gary,
> 
> I think there are a few separate, but related issues here.  I have  
> exactly the same issue, and there is no good solution right now.
> 
> First, the problem is not the name of the account.  "Cash Management  
> Account" is a name invented by the institution.  I have a CMA with  
> Merrill Lynch, and as you seem to have discovered, the basic issue
> is that they have a single account for both cash and investments,
> where KMM uses an investment account (securities only) and a
> separate, but linked "brokerage" account for the cash portion
> (although it can be defined as cash, checking, or savings.)  I
> suspect part of the reason KMM does it this way is historical -
> investment transactions and cash transactions are so different that
> it may have been the developers' decision to track them in separate
> type accounts.
> 
> One possible (theoretical) solution to allow using a single account
> (it would be an investment account) would be to create a "cash"
> security, with a value of 1 in whatever currency you use.  I call it
> theoretical, because, for example, a stock purchase transaction
> requires the cash come from the brokerage account associated with the
> investment account, and although you could sell an appropriate amount
> of the "case" security at the same time, it would still be two
> separate investment transactions.  In addition, I'm pretty sure it
> still wouldn't match the transactions you download from the
> institution.
> 
> Regarding reconciling an investment account in KMM, this is
> something I've been meaning to bring up for a long time.  I don't
> know the history, but I suspect that reconciliation was invented for
> bank and/or credit card accounts.  Although you can perform the
> procedure on an investment account (I actually do it on a regular
> basis) it only takes into account cash transactions, and always shows
> the balance as $0.  In addition, it does not change the status of
> investment transactions, so I still need to do that (cleared ->
> reconciled) manually.  The only real thing it does for me is  to
> place the "last reconciliation" banner in the ledger.  In my case, I
> do a reconciliation only after confirming the number of shares for
> all securities in the account - and I'm not sure there is a way to
> get that information through OFX, although I admit I have not checked
> the OFX specs.
> 
> Final issue - when I download OFX transactions for my CMA account
> (and exactly the same for my IRA, even though the name is different)
> the institution not only mixes investment and cash transactions, for  
> dividend reinvestments, they use three transactions: one for
> dividend, one for purchase, and separate one for reinvestment.  For a
> while, I tried importing all those transactions and then doing manual
> editing and deletion  to clean things  up.  I now find it easier to
> just enter all the transactions manually.
> 
> One point to note: the csv importer may be able to handle the
> imports correctly.  I know the developer had been working on this,
> but I don't know how far he actually got.  If you are interested in
> pursuing this, he might be interested in seeing some example csv
> files from the institution.  The other option, although I'm not sure
> whether it would be worth the effort, is to create a pre-processor,
> that takes an OFX file from the institution, and separates it into a
> pair of files, one for the investment account, and one for the
> brokerage account.
> 
> Sorry to ramble, but, unfortunately, I do not see any easy solution
> for this issue.  Contrary opinions are welcome.
> 
> Jack
> _______________________________________________
>

Picking up Jack's point about CSV files, and yes, there is the
capability to import investment accounts, if they are available.  Much
depends though on the actual format and content of the file.  If you
are interested in pursuing this, you could send direct to me an example
file, with any sensitive data disguised, as long as it is still clear
what is numeric and what is alpha.

Allan