Estimated Income: Precision of Price/Share.

[aviator]

Hi Mark,

On the Income tab of an investment's properties, what precision is being used to store Payment per Share?

The screen accepts price/share in dollars and cents. If I enter an amount of, say .467523/share, it gets rounded up to .47 on the screen. But what amount is being used to calculate the estimated income, .467523 or .47?

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi aviator,

The payment per share does actually record to the full precision that you enter. It also uses this in the calculation, but as you saw, if you re-look at the number in this dialog, it only fills it in to 2 digits to the right of the decimal.

[aviator]

Thanks, Mark. A couple of questions, please:

1) Is there way to see the exact number recorded for an investment's estimated annual income?

2) Using the example above, let's say I recorded .467523 for an investment's estimated annual income. The dialog displays .47. If, at some later date, I open the income dialog and inadvertently clicked OK instead of cancel, does .47 override the .467523?

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi aviator,

1) You can use the "Income Schedule" report, and add the "Amount /s" field by selecting it under "Options / Report Preferences... / Income Schedule". This field will honor your "decimal places to display" preference of a price, under the "General" tab.

2) Unfortunately, it would replace it with 0.47... I will see about fixing this for the next release. It would be better to treat this field as a price, instead of a value, as it does now.

[aviator]

Unfortunately, it would replace it with 0.47... I will see about fixing this for the next release. It would be better to treat this field as a price, instead of a value, as it does now.

Thanks, Mark, changing it would be very helpful. Hopefully you can get this in by the next release.

I've printed the current estimated income values which I'll use in case I inadvertently change something.

I'll post feedback later on ideas I have for improving the income and taxation parts of FM, to make great software greater.

[Mark]

Hi aviator,

I'm curious why you are using values that have more than 2 digits past the decimal point?

[aviator]

I'm curious why you are using values that have more than 2 digits past the decimal point?

Good question. My brokerage house provides total income per share on an annual basis. Interestingly, most of those amounts are three digits to the right of the decimal point.

Depending on how often dividends are paid, I divide total income per share by the frequency of payments (which I pull from Google), and that most often results in more than 2 digits past the decimal point. Then, using FM I enter the dates of payment and the divided amount, which gives me a clearer picture of what my monthly and quarterly income expectations should be.

One suggestion for FM would be to allow the income/share to be entered along with the expected date of payment. Some of my investments don't pay the same amount each time. Quite a few are heavily skewed toward the month of December. But as it is today, I have to assume equal weight because I can only enter one amount for the payment.

Hope this makes sense...

[Mark]

Hi aviator,

Thanks for the explanation, that does make sense.