Re: Recording transactions

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In Reply to: Recording transactions posted by Tom on June 26, 1999 at 12:56:48:

: Mark - Have you considered recording transactions in portfolios rather than indivdual investments?

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, I've thought about this, and I remain convinced that keeping
transactions associated with investments is the most powerful and flexible.

:This would provide a number of advantages, including the following:

: 1. The entry of transactions would be simplified and data entry errors would be reduced; e.g., you could sell all shares in investment X and invest the proceeds in investment Y.

Agreed, this is really the only advantage of keeping transactions with portfolios, but only slightly, as you can do the same with the investment approach, as long as you keep both investments in your portfolio.

: 2. Portfolio transaction histories would now be available instead of only individual investment transaction histories.

This can be accomplished the same either way. There is no fundamental reason
why FM couldn't have a portfolio transaction history report with the
current method of keeping transactions in the investments. This would be
a good improvement, and is in our plans.

: 3. The need to maintain multiple copies of investments that are held in two or more portfolios would be eliminated.

I assume you are referring to the price updates? You would want to keep
a separate record of the investments for transaction purposes either way.
The same investment can belong in multiple portfolios. You don't have to
create a new investment for each portfolio, only if you have a different
account, with a different transaction history, do you want to create a
separate investment.

The benefit of keeping the prices/transactions in the investment, is that
then you can group your investments in as many different ways as you desire,
and compare the performance of whatever groupings you want. For example,
you could have one portfolio for all your investments, one for only your
retirement investments, another for stocks only, and a fourth for mutuals.
Portfolios give you the flexibility of looking at your same investments,
but in different groups.

: 4. Reports could be generated for all portfolios rather than a single portfolio.

This would work the same either way I believe. It is just that you can
only currently open one portfolio at a time in FM. This is unrelated to
the where the transactions are stored.

: Regards - Tom

Thanks,
Mark
--
Mark Beiley

Fund Manager for Windows 3.1x/95/98/NT

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