Running total for shares in securities register
Chivito
via web
It would be very helpful to have a running share total in each security register. (It seems kind of basic.) I know I can go to another screen to see the total but I want to see it while I am still in the register. Quicken had this function.
Support Staff 2 Posted by Ben Spencer on 28 Oct, 2011 09:38 PM
The moneydance investment register is not restricted to a single security. I an not certain it would be clear which security the running total was referring to.
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
3 Posted by Chivito on 28 Oct, 2011 10:13 PM
I am sorry, I must not be using the correct terminology. When I click on any of my security names it opens a window where there are three tabs: Portfolio View, Register, and Security Detail. I am referring to the window that opens when I click the "Register" tab. I would like to see a running total of shares so that I can see in this window how many shares of this one fund after I add new shares.
Support Staff 4 Posted by Ben Spencer on 30 Oct, 2011 02:50 PM
Hi Chivito
I understand that you are asking for a running total of the security in the investment register. However the investment register can refer to more than one type of security. Please see the attached screenshot. In this screenshot there is first a Buy for 500 shares in a security called AAA @ $12/share. Then there is a buy for 200 shares in a security called BBB @ $2/share. I don't see how a running total would be useful here. Would the total be 700? Surely it does not make sense to sum the number of shares held in different securities.
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
5 Posted by zeke on 30 Oct, 2011 02:53 PM
This is one of the annoying aspects of moneydance. I've seen requests for this type of organization/information going back years. See e.g. http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/suggestions/158-share-tota... and http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/suggestions/691-balances-i... for some discussions. The problem is that investment accounts in moneydance are strictly cash accounts ala broker's accounts. MD was not really designed to deal with accounts for single funds. Securities are sort of tacked on, and you can't really view them directly. You can only make transactions with the cash account. You can only view a share total at one point in time. To get share totals at different times you have to create a report or use, I think, the "portfolio view" in your account, and change the date.
Support Staff 6 Posted by Ben Spencer on 30 Oct, 2011 03:20 PM
Would adding a running total to the security detail view meet your needs. Specifically adding the running total to the list of transactions specific to a particular security. i.e. in the list of transactions shown in the top left panel in the attached screenshot.
7 Posted by zeke on 30 Oct, 2011 04:03 PM
I don't want to high-jack this thread, and I can't speak for Chivito, but the biggest PITA is reconciling after the fact. I'll give you an example: I have mutual funds from several companies, and I make regularly scheduled monthly transactions in fixed dollar amounts in each of them. If I don't keep up religiously, I have quite a few transactions to enter, up to maybe 10-20 at a time, depending on circumstances. Each one has a potential for an error in the amount of shares. With a running share balance to look at as I make an entry, errors would be easy to avoid (since there is also a share balance in my statement). In moneydance, it is not. This has happened to us - we have made mistakes that haven't been caught at the time, and we are now off by quite a few shares. It is really unpleasant to try and reconcile the share amounts in moneydance. Basically it's like trying to reconcile a bank account w/o being able to see the balance you're trying to compare to.
8 Posted by Chivito on 30 Oct, 2011 05:47 PM
Zeke, thanks, that is EXACTLY the problem I am having. Having a running share balance as I have in my mutual statements would be ideal. Quicken had this feature. I have no accounting or bookkeeping training but this seems like a really basic feature to me.
If I could ever get my mutual fund transactions to download from my financial institution into MD this might not be such an issue.
9 Posted by Chivito on 30 Oct, 2011 05:56 PM
Ben, all of the mutual funds I own have their own investment registers. There is no mixing of different funds in one register. That is how it was in my Quicken data and that is how it was imported to MD.
I don't think the running total in the security detail would help me. I want to see the total as I make the entry so I can see if I entered it correctly by comparing the running total to the total on my statement. Switching between views to see this would be tedious.
Support Staff 10 Posted by Ben Spencer on 02 Nov, 2011 03:48 PM
It would be a very significant change to create a new type of investment account that only handles one security type. It could be done and I think it is unlikely to happen any time soon. However I have written up a suggestion ticket and attached it to this case such that you posts count as a vote for the ticket. I have also filed a ticket to add the running total to the security detail view.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
11 Posted by exigent on 07 Nov, 2011 01:24 AM
Ben: As to you post on Oct 30th... Yes, it would be a HUGE help to have a running total in the securities detail view. I understand the issues with keeping running totals brokerage accounts that contain multiple investments, so I think this would be a reasonable workaround that would allow fairly easy access to share balances on a given date -- exactly the sort of thing you need for tracking down data entry errors and inconsistencies between MD and account statements.
PLEASE consider adding this feature -- and soon! :-)
12 Posted by exigent on 07 Nov, 2011 02:22 AM
Hmmm. Not to spam this thread, but I've figured out a somewhat kludgy hack to extract this info on an as-needed basis. Go to "Tools" > "Graphs and Reports" and choose the investment of interest from the "Account/Category" pulldown. Set the date range of interest, and set "Group By:" to "Group By Day". Now click the button to "Generate" the graph. This gives you a graph of share balances and if you hover over the points you get the date and share balance. While it can be hard to hover over a specific date, you get a plateau of values with a dot per day stretching from one transaction to the next.
This is a bit hard to explain, but if you do the above you'll get a graph and (hopefully) see what I mean. Using this graph, I was able to compare share balances against monthly statements and pin down (and fix) and error that has been haunting me.
While this is far from an elegant solution, it may prove helpful if you're struggling with finding a share balance error due to Moneydance's lack of historical share balances.
13 Posted by zeke on 07 Nov, 2011 03:54 AM
I don't really get this "running total" - running total of what? Money in transactions? I already know that. Share balance? that would a reasonable compromise. I will point out that NONE of my transactions have share amounts that are nice round numbers. It is incredibly easy to mistake 32.467 for 23.647, not to mention 32.467, even when you read the entries again, especially if you're switching back and forth between views. I made a rough estimate of the number of mutual fund transactions I record, and it is something like 30-40 / quarter, including purchases and reinvested dividend, short-term and long-term capital gain distributions, all of which are separate transactions. Plus we have two people recording data, which doesn't help. Mistakes will be made, and it is really difficult to reconcile when you don't have a total to compare to.
14 Posted by exigent on 07 Nov, 2011 04:18 AM
zeke: We're talking about share balances here - or at least I am.
15 Posted by zeke on 07 Nov, 2011 04:48 PM
exigent
Yes, I understand, but I'm not sure that understanding is universal. There have been other requests and I'm not sure the support staff fully appreciates the issue or its importance for many people. See for example the links I cited above on the exact same issue, one dating from 2009. The same discussion seems to happen over and over w/ no changes made.