Loading Profile...
Setting the stock 'average cost versus lot matching' option
Stocks can be costed on the basis of an average cost for a stock or by matching stocks (as 'lots') to their real purchase price. At the moment, this has to be individually set-up for each stock in each investment account.
Why not include a setting in the preferences form that specifies whether the user's default stock costing method is to be average cost or lots?
Why not include a setting in the preferences form that specifies whether the user's default stock costing method is to be average cost or lots?
I’m very impressed by Moneydance
1
person likes this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The company has this under consideration.
Create a customer community for your own organization
Plans starting at $19/month
-
Inappropriate?Currently stocks default to average cost but if you manually add a security the option is in the new-security window and doesn't require any extra steps. So the benefit would be that automatically created securities could be lot-based rather than average cost. I think the only problem is that lot-based securities require interaction (to allocate the lots) and so can't be completely automatic anyway.
Can you think of a way that this could be done? Would it make sense to have the default setting be lot-based but also specify an algorithm such as FIFO, LIFO, highest-gain, least-gain, etc?
The company thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Hi Sean.
I must admit that I only raised the idea of a user default setting in the preferences form because I had to manually change about 40 stock accounts to 'lot based' following their import from Quicken where I had always used the lot-based option. As far as I remember, Quicken has a user-selectable default setting which it then applies to any new accounts.
To be honest, it's not a big issue for accounts that are created in the normal way as a result of buying a new stock - as you say, there are no additional steps other than remembering to tick the 'lots' check-box. The provision of a preferences setting would, however, serve to ensure that the user got the right setting automatically when they next created an account.
Personally, I wouldn't see any benefit in attempting to anticipate how the user would want those lots handled in subsequent stock sales by the imposition if some form of FIFO, LIFO or other algorithm.
In the UK, the use of lot-based stock management is most likely to be chosen in order to easily optimise stock disposals with regard to capital gains tax liabilities. Given the vagaries of most countries tax systems, I think you'd be on a hiding to nothing if you were to implement any automation in this area. It's better to just let the user make the lot selection dependent on their individual needs.
I’m happy to be talking to the boss! ;-)
EMPLOYEE
