I have started to look at the changes in Master to see what I will gain or lose if I adopt it and found a change with Investment transactions that is problematic for how I enter data.
Investment transactions only offer a single Action of Dividends even though there are various types of dividends a security can pay in the US. Specifically, I need to be able to track: 1) Ordinary Dividends, 2) Short Term Capital Gain Distributions, and 3) Long Term Capital Gain Distributions. These all have to be recorded with an Action = Dividends but eventually need to be reported differently on Tax Returns. I have a separate Category for each one but find that the way the Reports work on investment transactions, I can get the best reports in the Stable version if I assign either a Number or Tag in the Brokerage Account. I use DIV, STCG or LTCG for the number or tag, and display these fields on my relevant reports. I have discovered that in the Master neither the Number or Tag fields are accessible when entering or editing transactions. This functionality seems to have been removed from the Stable version and makes it impossible to get needed reporting with the Master. Is there a reason why it was removed and do you have any suggestions how to achieve this reporting need with the Master?
@markhm I have no idea what your actual needs in terms of reporting are, but you could try to assign tags by opening the split transaction editor on the income categories. The split editor allows to assign tags to splits.
Tags had some serious problems in the stable version. For other reasons, the whole ledger code had been rewritten which includes the transaction editors.
I use Categories for this, and have far more than you list. First, I have a separate set of categories for regular and for tax-deferred accounts. For Short and Long term gains, I distinguish regular, distribution, and reinvestments. I get all I need on a regular report by category. Why does this not work for you?
Separately, I don’t understand what are you trying to do by using numbers or tags? I’ll have to check (I’ve been using versions from master branch for a long time) but I don’t recall either numbers or tags being intentionally removed, but I do see they are not available in the main transaction editor. However, they are both available in the split editor, so at least there is a temporary workaround. I’ll have to go digging (probably into the code or commit messages) to see if their omission was intentional or not.
In stable, if an investment transaction was opened in the brokerage account, a regular transaction editor was opened. This editor allows to do what @markhm is describing. Opening an investment transaction in a regular transaction editor could cause other problems and therefore master has been changed to use the investment transaction editor even when editing the transaction in the brokerage account. So nothing has really been taken away on purpose in the investment transaction editor.
Using Category didn’t work for me for several reasons (in both Stable and Master):
For US income tax reporting purposes, I use long Category names. For example, I use “Ordinary Dividends (1099-DIV • 1a)” for dividends. This name corresponds to the form I receive for tax preparation and allows me to verify the reported dividend amount. Using this long name causes readability issues with reports, since report column width can’t be adjusted for printing in the program and requires export to a spreadsheet for that ability. Quicken solved that problem by having both a Category Name and a Category Description and allowing you to choose which one appeared on Reports. I tried to simulate that capability using Tags but found the implementation of Tags in Reports was problematic. So I decided to use the Number field for short Category Names. That worked beautifully in the Stable version of the program but access to Number and Tags has been removed from the Security Editor in the Master as described by ipwizard.
I tried seeing how I could accomplish my needs with the Master by using short Categories. No matter what I did, I could not get suitable reports. Regardless of selection criteria for the report, the Category field always showed either “[Split Transaction]” or it showed the detailed lines for the split, including the transfer to the brokerage account. The transfer line couldn’t we excluded by any selection criteria.
Note that the number and tag fields have not been removed, they have been moved. Since both are actually attributes of splits and not of transactions, they can be accessed in the split editor. Try testing that, although I don’t know if you will run into the same reporting problem in your second point.
For that second issue, have you tried different types of reports? Off the top of my head (I have not actually tested) what happens if you only include the brokerage account, not the investment account?
The split editor only gives me access to the Memo field (in addition to the normally used investment fields). No editor seems to give me access to the Tag or Memo field in the Brokerage or Security Account ledgers. I could move my special coding from the Number field to the Memo field and achieve what worked in the reports in the Stable version, however, see #2 below.
The issue for me seems to be mostly with a defect in how the investment report for investment transactions works. If I run the report in the Default Report configuration, I get good reports. If I go to the Rows/Columns tab and Organize by Accounts or Top Accounts, the report no longer works properly. If I want to see dividend distributions by securities, I have to use the Organize by Accounts configuration. Using this configuration, even though the Include Transfers box is unchecked, transfers are included. Reports have the transfer to the brokerage account and the dividend to the dividend Category, so the total nets to Zero. Trying to select only the security account results in a report with both splits and a net of Zero. Trying to select only the Brokerage account results in an empty report. Also note that filtering by Category or Account gives a note that transfers are excluded in the report but this is not the case. Filtering with the Details tab by Type also does not work. I can’t find any way to get beyond the net Zero balance for the Security (Account) in the Report.
I got all the fields sorted out thanks to the help you guys have given about what fields are available and best ways to access them.
My big remaining problem is the Reports. As I noted, when I select Investment Transactions and organize by Accounts or Top Accounts, all Dividend Actions are shown as Transfers with net Zero values. I can’t find any way to get around this. Here is a sample of what I get:
As a result, I can’t get a report by security that shows totals for all transactions in a specified time period.
Any chance this malfunctioning of the report can be corrected when this Organize By selection is used? Any other Organize By criteria seems to work correctly.
I would not say the report is malfunctioning, but that its design does not give you what you want to see. It is indeed the case that the Stock account does have a net zero value for that transaction. Have you tried looking at the Investment Account (which I think would have the same problem) or the Brokerage Account, which should only show that transferred amount, which is your actual income for the transaction. The next question would then be how to sort or separate that report by security. If there is a report which works except for that, then adding the sorting or grouping might be a reasonable wishlist with a chance of being implemented.
The only real answer to that is in the code, but I wonder if that may be because that logic was established before investments were handled at all (yes, that would be very long ago.) I know in some cases, Investment accounts are handled differently from other types of accounts, so perhaps that is the case here, and if that turns out to be true, then some alteration might be possible. However, there are very few people capable of understanding the code at that level, much less modifying it safely.
At worst, I will add all of this to the notes for the eventual redo of how KMM handles investments, but there is absolutely no timeline for that yet.
What happens if you select both the brokerage and investment accounts for the report? I suppose it might be possible that it won’t help, but if that transaction shows up for one but not the other of those accounts, I’d be rather surprised. (Although I admit I’ve been surprised by lesser things.)
The sample output I put in a previous reply was with both accounts selected. I get exact same results in all selection attempts regardless of whether I select only an investment account or both an investment account and the brokerage account. I always get an empty report when I use the same selection criteria and only the brokerage account.
