Re: suggestion: investment accounts, balances and reconciling

On 4/11/2011 1:33 PM, Edward Reid wrote:
> I have added this suggestion to the support forum at
>
> http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/suggestions/691-balances-in-investment-accounts-and-reconciling 
>
>
> The text of the suggestion is:
>
> Although MD knows that the critical value for securities is shares, 
> not their current value, it gives us very little help in dealing with 
> share values. In particular, share balances are not shown in registers 
> and there is no way to reconcile share counts except manually, even 
> though share counts are the only thing which can be reconciled other 
> than the Cash Balance. The Cash Balance is given top priority when it 
> should have the lowest priority.
>
> The investment account register shows the Cash Balance, and 
> reconciling the cash balance works fine. For most of us, though, the 
> cash balance is the least important part of an investment account and 
> seldom has a value other than zero. The Securities Detail shows share 
> amounts for transactions, but not a share balance, even though the box 
> to the right is mostly empty and could easily be reorganized to make 
> space for another column. Even worse, ctrl-B (reconcile) while 
> Securities Detail is showing opens the reconcile function for the cash 
> balance instead.
>
> My suggestions:
>
> 1) Remove the Cash Balance column from the account register. This will 
> allow other columns to be expanded, which is important because the 
> columns in the account register are already cramped. The Cash Balance 
> is no more important than the share balances in the securities in the 
> account, so it should not have a special place here.
>
> 2) Add the Cash Balance to the list of securities in the Securities 
> Detail. (It's already in the Portfolio View.)
>
> 3) In the Securities Detail register, add a Balance column, which 
> would be currency for the Cash Balance and shares for other 
> securities. Reorganize the box to the right of the register to make it 
> narrower to provide space for the balance column.
>
> 4) When a reconcile is requested in the Securities Detail, reconcile 
> the currently displayed security. (This is how every investment 
> statement I've seen is organized anyway.) When the Cash Balance is 
> selected, reconcile in the currency of the account. For any other 
> security, reconcile in shares.
>
> 5) Disable the reconcile function when in Portfolio View or Register. 
> Alternatively, display an extended starting value window which asks 
> which security to reconcile.
>
> Edward
>
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I agree with the need to show cumulative shares somewhere.  The 
information would be of best use to me if it was shown in an additional 
column of the History screen invoked from Securities Detail.

I have lost count of the times I wanted to find a reconciliation error I 
made in some prior month.  It is a tedious process.

While we are talking of a wish list, I would add the ability to review 
the portfolio holdings (securities, shares, prices) of some prior month 
end.  Quicken allowed this way back in the days of Quicken for DOS.

-- 
David B. Lawrence