Investment Properties "Name" too complex?

[ThomasK]

Hi Mark,

I might be tracking my investments with too much complexity.

For reporting purposes -- and years ago when I started using FM I created a few Custom Reports -- I decided to track holdings in a complicated way; seemed to make sense at the time.

Let's take IBM for example. If I wanted to have IBM in two accounts I created an investment of IBM for each Account and labeled it as such.
IBM [Account #1]
IBM [Account #2]

In the above manner, in my Custom Reports, I would then be able to see IBM shares on 2 separate lines, so that I could see the holdings of IBM in Account #1 and Account #2 plainly.

The above has served me well but I'm questioning it going forwards as for my Generic Transaction Import cannot be done by SYMB (in another post I describe that I'm planning to aggregate a handful of csv exports from my trading platform prior to Generic Importing).

Of course with the right instructions I can Generic Import the entire aggregated csv...just have to do some simply manipulations I think but I'm still working on that).

Your thoughts on this would be most welcomed.

ThomasK

[Mark]

Hi ThomasK,

This is quite normal for tracking the same security in multiple accounts. Normally the generic transaction import is done by symbol. On the same line of your importing file you would have the symbol and account number. This way, FM will know how to find the right investment, as it matches by both account number and symbol.

[ThomasK]

Thanks Mark,

Okay, let's see if I'm understanding how Fund Manager uses the asset (".dat") files. Let's say I have Portfolio#1 and Portfolio#2 and I need to put IBM as investments.

Q1. I need to create a New Investment for IBM for EACH Portfolio, yes?

Q2. Fund Manager needs to have an asset file for IBM in each portfolio then ,yes?

Q3. If I'm doing a Generic Import, as long as I have the SYMB and ACCT correct in the csv, if the symbol does not exist for that account FM will create it...then at any time later I can modify the investment by adding my "[text]" in the Name so that it makes sense to me, yes?

Q4. I'm guessing that FM does not care what the asset file is...it can be "AnyName.dat" and FM "knows" what is in it AND it knows what investments are in what Portfolios, yes? Said differently, when saving a new investment FM creates a name for it...I can change that name to whatever, but I like the simple way that FM combines the symbol and account number. Redundant, yes, but like I said I'm willing to redo/fix/clean up FM.

Thanks, have a great weekend.

ThomasK

[Mark]

Hi ThomasK,

1) Yes.

2) By "asset file", I think you mean "investment file" in FM terminology. Yes, you would create a different investment file (*.dat) for each account holding that investment. Each investment would be located in the appropriate sub-portfolio. We actually have some more information on this at this FAQ:

https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/faq ... tments.php

3) Correct.

4) Correct, the filename of the investment is independent of the properties of that investment like name, symbol, etc. The portfolio file (*.mm4) is what remembers which investment files are located in each sub-portfolio.

[ThomasK]

Great, thanks Mark.

Good usage tip on the New Investment drop down menu to save time populating the fields!