Change Purchases to Transfer IN

[Flijfi]

Hi,

1) I have incorrectly registered the cash additions to the portfolio as purchases. Now I know that in order to have the gain calculations right I have to change all of them to TransferIN.

Is there an easy way to "convert" purchases (and Sells) to Transfer IN (OUT) transactions?

2) I will also change the *ORDER* of Custom fields of "Investment Goal" and "Asset Type" (not the label) of them, so

Is there an easy way to assign all investment of a certain type to a new Goal/Type Custom field?

3) In the spirit of FM12, I'm doing a mayor rearrangement in the way that my portfolio is registred in FM. So I am looking for any "best practices" compilation there may be in general. If any, can you point it to me?

Thanks!


Flijfi

[Mark]

Hi Flijfi,

1) Recording cash additions as purchases is perfectly fine. There is really no reason to change them to transfer in transactions. What problem were you running into?

There is no easy way to change all purchases to transfer in transactions. You would need to delete, and re-add, but I don't think this is necessary in this case.

2) There really isn't an easy way to change the order... If you change the labels, the investments remain assigned by position, not the label text. You would then have to update the investment's assignment. One way you could automate this is to export asset type assignments using "File / Export / Other / Asset Type..." and then drag/drop columns in Excel to re-order the assignments, the same way you re-order the labels. Afterwards, re-import the asset types using "File / Import / Other / Asset Type...". That exported file format is documented in the online help, but basically the first column is the symbol, and then the next columns are the percentages, in order. So, if you swapped the labels in position 2 and 3 under "Options / Category Labels..." you would swap columns 3 and 4 in the .CSV file (since the first column is the symbol).

3) You might just browse this forum, it is a good source of ideas. If there is any specific area you're looking for ideas on please let me know.

[Flijfi]

mark,

Regarding to the order of the order of the custom fields, I have a silly problem. I have a set of goal fields as CURRENCY:Type (i.e. "USD:CASH" , "BRL:StructuredNotes" and goals fields as CURRENCY:COUNTRY:VolatilityRange (i.e.: "BRL:BR:V15-25", "USD:GL:V5". As an intend to report based on currency and asset type by currency and something as "risk" (inferred from volatility) / country/currency.

It happens that I defined the first field of each in an inconsistent way type USD:xx and goal BRL:xx so when an investment is created automatically (or not) it picks those first fields and makes me verify and change the data.
I am trying to have them at least consistent in currency.

Any way I wasn't able to classify the investments as I intended, since I don't know how to report (and graph) by Currency, Country and Volatility(or a Risk related/custom field) with subtotals.
I will change the whole portfolio classification if there is a way to accomplish that.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Mark]

Hi Flijfi,

I don't have any other ideas besides what I put in my last post under #2. You can either do it manually, or use the export/import method I described. You might want to make a backup (File / Backup...) before you start, in case things go bad. You can then restore to at least get back to where you started, and try again.

[Flijfi]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your replay.
I mean if you have any suggestion about how to accomplish the reporting I intend, since with the current setup I am not able to report (and graph) by Currency, Country and Volatility(or a Risk related/custom field) with subtotals.

Flijfi

[Mark]

Hi Flijfi,

You do have the most reporting/graphing flexibility by using the categories (asset type or investment goal). We don't have a way to break it down by more than 1 category at a time though, so if you want these multiple segments, you would need to do as you're describing, and assign all the variables you want into the category labels you choose.