As noted elsewhere in this forum, there is some confusion or uncertainty when trying to track the purchase and sale of stocks in Skrooge.

Here is the scenario:
Following the Units page of the Skrooge Handbook, I have set up a stock using the Manual/Share tab. That was successful; I can see the current price of the stock as downloaded from Google by using the stock symbol as the Internet code.

Now I want to record a purchase transaction for that stock in my brokerage account. I have created an account for the brokerage that receives the cash I want to invest. There is another account that is a money market fund. Cash is transferred from my bank account into the brokerage account. Those funds are swept into the money market fund. All that works as expected.

Following the Operations page of the Skrooge Handbook, I now attempt to record the purchase of some stock. I open the Operations page of the money market fund that is the source of the funds. I select the Shares tab. In the Amount field, I enter the positive number of shares purchased. For the Unit of Operation, I select the stock symbol from the drop-down menu. The Payee field remains blank. For Category, I select the previously-created Stocks category. Now I enter the full dollar amount of the transaction into the Amount of Shares field. There is no commission nor tax. The correct Total is displayed.

Now I select the Add button. Surprisingly two transactions are added to the Operations!

One is the expected partial, unpointed transaction showing a debit to the money market fund but no category is displayed. (The Units page shows the new shares purchased.)
The other transaction is pointed but shows no category. It has inexplicably added the amount of the share purchase plus US$20.50 to the money market fund. Where did that come from?

Is it possible to track shares of stock in Skrooge?

My Installation
Skrooge Version 2.10.3 using KDE Frameworks 5.18.0, Qt 5.5.1 and the xcb windowing system
Operating System: Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 64-bit

cmb wrote:Following the Operations page of the Skrooge Handbook, I now attempt to record the purchase of some stock. I open the Operations page of the money market fund that is the source of the funds. I select the Shares tab. In the Amount field, I enter the positive number of shares purchased. For the Unit of Operation, I select the stock symbol from the drop-down menu. The Payee field remains blank.

Perfect.

cmb wrote:For Category,s I select the previously-created Stocks category.

I don't understand, there is no category field on this panel

cmb wrote:Now I enter the full dollar amount of the transaction into the Amount of Shares field. There is no commission nor tax. The correct Total is displayed.

Perfect.

cmb wrote:Now I select the Add button. Surprisingly two transactions are added to the Operations!

One is the expected partial, unpointed transaction showing a debit to the money market fund but no category is displayed. (The Units page shows the new shares purchased.)

Good. This is the transaction corresponding to the payment of the shares.

cmb wrote:The other transaction is pointed but shows no category. It has inexplicably added the amount of the share purchase plus US$20.50 to the money market fund. Where did that come from?

This transaction is pointed because you did the transaction with the reconciliation mode enabled.
This transaction is corresponding to the shares.
Example:
if you decide to buy 10 GOOGLE shares for a price of 125€.
You will have:
1- An operation of -125€ (the first one)
2- An operation of 10 GOOGLE (the second one)
Both operations will be linked.
Of course, the amount of the second operation will be displayed in € (because this is the primary unit) computed by using the current amount of the GOOGLE unit.
If the current amount of unit is 2€, you will see 20€ (2€*10) for the second operations.
This could explain the difference of (US$20.50) in your case.

cmb wrote:Is it possible to track shares of stock in Skrooge?

Yes!

smankowski wrote:

cmb wrote:For Category, I select the previously-created Stocks category.

I don't understand, there is no category field on this panel

I don't know where that came from. The Category field appears in the panel at first but is removed when switching to the Shares tab as you say.

smankowski wrote:

cmb wrote:Now I enter the full dollar amount of the transaction into the Amount of Shares field. There is no commission nor tax. The correct Total is displayed.

Perfect.

cmb wrote:Now I select the Add button. Surprisingly two transactions are added to the Operations!
One is the expected partial, unpointed transaction showing a debit to the money market fund but no category is displayed. (The Units page shows the new shares purchased.)

Good. This is the transaction corresponding to the payment of the shares.

cmb wrote:The other transaction is pointed but shows no category. It has inexplicably added the amount of the share purchase plus US$20.50 to the money market fund. Where did that come from?

This transaction is pointed because you did the transaction with the reconciliation mode enabled.
This transaction is corresponding to the shares.
Example:
if you decide to buy 10 GOOGLE shares for a price of 125€.
You will have:
1- An operation of -125€ (the first one)
2- An operation of 10 GOOGLE (the second one)
Both operations will be linked.
Of course, the amount of the second operation will be displayed in € (because this is the primary unit) computed by using the current amount of the GOOGLE unit.
If the current amount of unit is 2€, you will see 20€ (2€*10) for the second operations.
This could explain the difference of (US$20.50) in your case.

It is disconcerting to have an error in the balance in the money market account after the stock purchase transaction. The balance should always be exactly the same amount as in the actual account. In my case, one operation in the money market account reduces the balance to the correct amount. The other transaction adds a similar amount back into the balance. After the purchase of the shares, I have more money than I started with. (If only the real world worked this way!)
If I just delete the erroneous operation in the money market account and check the Units page, I see that there is no record of the stock purchase. At least the money market balance is now correct.

smankowski wrote:

cmb wrote:Is it possible to track shares of stock in Skrooge?

Yes!

I would like to know how it's done.

cmb wrote:

smankowski wrote:

cmb wrote:For Category, I select the previously-created Stocks category.

I don't understand, there is no category field on this panel

I don't know where that came from. The Category field appears in the panel at first but is removed when switching to the Shares tab as you say.

smankowski wrote:

cmb wrote:Now I enter the full dollar amount of the transaction into the Amount of Shares field. There is no commission nor tax. The correct Total is displayed.

Perfect.

cmb wrote:Now I select the Add button. Surprisingly two transactions are added to the Operations!
One is the expected partial, unpointed transaction showing a debit to the money market fund but no category is displayed. (The Units page shows the new shares purchased.)

Good. This is the transaction corresponding to the payment of the shares.

cmb wrote:The other transaction is pointed but shows no category. It has inexplicably added the amount of the share purchase plus US$20.50 to the money market fund. Where did that come from?

This transaction is pointed because you did the transaction with the reconciliation mode enabled.
This transaction is corresponding to the shares.
Example:
if you decide to buy 10 GOOGLE shares for a price of 125€.
You will have:
1- An operation of -125€ (the first one)
2- An operation of 10 GOOGLE (the second one)
Both operations will be linked.
Of course, the amount of the second operation will be displayed in € (because this is the primary unit) computed by using the current amount of the GOOGLE unit.
If the current amount of unit is 2€, you will see 20€ (2€*10) for the second operations.
This could explain the difference of (US$20.50) in your case.

It is disconcerting to have an error in the balance in the money market account after the stock purchase transaction. The balance should always be exactly the same amount as in the actual account. In my case, one operation in the money market account reduces the balance to the correct amount. The other transaction adds a similar amount back into the balance. After the purchase of the shares, I have more money than I started with. (If only the real world worked this way!)

I don't understand what is the issue.
If you buy 10 shares of GOOGLE for a price of 125€ (12.5€ per share).
And if the value of one GOOGLE share is now 13€.
Then you have 10 GOOGLE shares (if you want to display "entered amount") or 130€ (if you want to display "amount").

Yes, you have more money.

cmb wrote:If I just delete the erroneous operation in the money market account and check the Units page, I see that there is no record of the stock purchase. At least the money market balance is now correct.

smankowski wrote:

cmb wrote:Is it possible to track shares of stock in Skrooge?

Yes!

I would like to know how it's done.

Here's the same example stated in a different way. Before the stock transaction, I have US$500 in a money market fund. In order to purchase shares, money from the money market fund will be debited from that account.

Here's that stock transaction. I place an order to purchase one share of VOO, an S&P 500 index exchange traded fund. The price for one share at the time of purchase is US$227.18. Therefore when the transaction is complete, the amount of funds in the money market fund should be US$500 less US$227.18 or US$272.82. That is not what is shown on the Operations page of the money market fund. Two transactions have been added to that page:

1. The correct debit of US$227.18 from the money market fund.

2. An erroneous transaction that adds US$236.40 to the money market fund. (US$236.40 is the current price of one share of VOO.)

Now the balance in the money market fund shown in Skrooge is US$509.22. The actual amount of funds in the money market account is US$272.82.

How can I show the true value of the money market fund in Skrooge so that it is exactly the same as the statement I receive from my broker?

Hi,

You must have 2 different accounts:
1- The account corresponding to your "money market fund". Called "Account1".
2- The account where your shares will be put. Called "Account2".

So, you have 500$ on "Account1" and nothing on "Account2".
You buy 1 VOO (227.18$) from "Account1" to "Account2".
So, you will have in "Account1" 272.82$ (500-227.18).
And, you will have in "Account2" 1 VO (236.40$).

This will be more clear.

I have created a new account called the Fake Brokerage Transaction Account.

smankowski wrote:You buy 1 VOO (227.18$) from "Account1" to "Account2".

Of course, if that worked it would be great. It doesn't. When working in the Operations page of the money market account, I can enter a new share purchase specifying the number of shares, the share symbol, the amount of the transaction and selecting the Fake Brokerage Transaction Account as the Payee. The shares are correctly recorded in Units but the balance shown in the money market fund account goes up and not down.

By the way, I also tried putting a negative amount in the Amount of Shares field when entering a stock purchase. The balance in the money market fund (from which funds were withdrawn) still increased.

Here's a method that I have also tried. I transfer funds from the money market fund to the Fake Brokerage Transaction Account. I open the Operations page of the fake account. Here I can purchase some shares.

I place notes in the comments section of individual operations to warn me that certain transactions here in the Fake Brokerage Transaction Account are spurious and should be ignored.

At least now the money market fund is not contaminated. Its balance is correct. Also the share holdings in the Units display is correct. The balances shown in the Fake Brokerage Transaction Account are wildly wrong but I'll have to ignore those.

Hi,

You must create the operations like this:


As you can see, the 1 VOO operation is done in account "Shares" and payed with 227.18€ from account "money marked fund".

The you will have this:

As you can see:

• The balance of the "money marked fund" account is well 272.82€
• The balance of the "shares" account is well 1 VOO or 236.40€ (computed by using the current value of VOO).

If you want to play with this example, you can download if from here: http://ovh.to/gwFgbSL

Regards.

smankowski wrote:As you can see, the 1 VOO operation is done in account "Shares" and payed with 227.18€ from account "money marked fund".

Aha! That's the key.
New share purchase and sale operations can only be correctly created from within the "Share" account. I was trying to create that share purchase Operation within the money market account.