This new feature is a good and powerful solution but it has a philosophy that can be hard to understand and also give some problems related to migrating existing data.
From 1.2.7 you have an existing portfolio but you need to fix the data creating the initial transaction but stock transactions performed in the past, before recording transaction with MMEX, force the user to bring the Current Account management back to the time the transaction has been performed at least to fix the balance.
You cannot correct the stock value in case you do not have the stock symbol or that symbol is not managed in the Yahoo site.
I guess some more comments from the users willl be welcome.
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Using stocks was always an issue with me because adding more shares to a stock was dificult to manage. Allocating funds to purchase shares again was difficult, and the dividend handling required a term account. Linking these together was always an isue. Obtaining extra share purchases to the same Stock account required me to create another stock, which to me was confusing. Updating a current share price was also difficult since all shares belonging to the same stock should have the same price. Fo me this was a confusing and difficult concept as the screens and reports would show individual share packets, and not the total shares for this company.
The current database structure, it has been extended and has eliminated the ambigious usage of the portfolio view. I agree that this has created an issue for some users because how the implementation was interpreted and used will become more complex to upgrade the data. If like me, you created another account for each bundle of shares, all these accounts now need to be removed and created as transactions to a base stock. I had the same issue. Addition of new shares now becomes more intuitive and easier to manage. Even removal of shares now become easier to mailtain.
Stocks and shares is a more complex problem because companies (Stocks) contain shares. A collection of stocks, creates a portfolio. Transactions are performed against a company(stock) in two ways. Depending on the type of transactopn you either add or subtract shares from a stock in a portfolio or you make transactions with the company in transfering money to or from that company in the form of purcgase, sale or dividends recieved.
I am not sure how you have implemented the existing data. If you have used the Stocks as companies with single transactions, then the conversion becomes easy. If you have added extra shares against the same company, this becomes more difficuly, because all the shares belong to the same company.
Personally, I found the initial concept harder to use, interpret and maintain and the updated implementation, once converted, should be easier to maintain. The user interface may need refinements allow the forms to be more intuitive.
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Thank you Stefano, actually I upgraded to the latest relase but I did not already made any change to the Portfolio because I am making some simulation in a new empty database, first to understand how it works and second to find the best way to migrate the existing protfolio to better fit my use. I would say that now I have a better understanding of the logic and I think in a few trial I will be ready to upgrade the portfolio. The only thing that still it is hard to understand for me is why for any new item in the portfolio the system create an account in the Stock group with the relevant transaction. I realized that a similar behavior is also in the assets; when you create one asset a transaction is atomatically created under the asset itself.
Anyway I think that MMEX is still the best open source money manager.
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Stocks and Assets have a different behavior to the standard account transactions. Therefore money cannot be passed from a standard account to a stock or asset. The only way to do this is to associate a standard account to a stock/share or asset account. The share account or share account entry links a share transaction entry to a normal transaction entry. Similar for Assets.
Example: In 1.2.x we cannot transfer money to a stock or asset. The transfer transactions act as a pendulium. What is taken from one account is put into another. In 1.3.x any transaction created for a share can be tied to any account. This gives us the ability to transfer money to stocks or assets. The creation of a Share account is made for simplification. The same mechanism is used for Assets.
For stocks, there are two sides of the equasion. We create a share account for the company stock. This allows us to transfer money from our stock to a normal bank account, because on the money side, the share account is the same as a bank account. On the other side of the stock equasion the stock entry in the portfolio view allows sub transactions in the form of share purchase or sales and link to share account to determine where the money came from.
In the Share account, we maintain two types of transactions. One dealing with real money that we transfer to it, or get money from it in the form of dividends. The other is the conversion of money to shares and are stored in the portfolio view. Editing any transaction will automatically give us the appropriate dialog being a normal transaction or a share transaction,
With assets, there is a similar behavior that we could not transfer money fron am asset to our accounts. 1.3.x introduces an asset account or an entry for an asset in any account we desire.
When we attempt to edit one of these entries, it is identified as an asset entry or a norman entry and is treated accordingly.
Have you had a look at the help provided? Does this provide sufficient informaton for the user?
If not, what does it need to make the explanation better?
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Thank you again for your reply. Like I said now the approach is really more powerful. The english Help is better explained compared with the Italian, that's why I always rely on English version. Nevertheless it is always better to test the features on a new database and then upgrade the one that you commonly use. To me was not useful, untill I tested it, the transactions that you create while you manage stoks, because those transactions happened before the time I started to use MMEX so it creates a record that I need to balance because it is befote the first transaction in my Account. For my purpose 1.3.1 is more than enough given that I have to correctly upgrade my database.
Very good Job! Thanks again.
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I have improved the tooltips on the Stock New/Edit dialog to better clarify how this now works.
On creating a new Stock, the Stock dialog will automatically close after the Share transaction is entered. Ref GitHub: https://github.com/moneymanagerex/moneymanagerex/pull/1164
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Answer provided here: https://sourceforge.net/p/moneymanagerex/bugs/1006/
This new feature is a good and powerful solution but it has a philosophy that can be hard to understand and also give some problems related to migrating existing data.
From 1.2.7 you have an existing portfolio but you need to fix the data creating the initial transaction but stock transactions performed in the past, before recording transaction with MMEX, force the user to bring the Current Account management back to the time the transaction has been performed at least to fix the balance.
You cannot correct the stock value in case you do not have the stock symbol or that symbol is not managed in the Yahoo site.
I guess some more comments from the users willl be welcome.
Using stocks was always an issue with me because adding more shares to a stock was dificult to manage. Allocating funds to purchase shares again was difficult, and the dividend handling required a term account. Linking these together was always an isue. Obtaining extra share purchases to the same Stock account required me to create another stock, which to me was confusing. Updating a current share price was also difficult since all shares belonging to the same stock should have the same price. Fo me this was a confusing and difficult concept as the screens and reports would show individual share packets, and not the total shares for this company.
The current database structure, it has been extended and has eliminated the ambigious usage of the portfolio view. I agree that this has created an issue for some users because how the implementation was interpreted and used will become more complex to upgrade the data. If like me, you created another account for each bundle of shares, all these accounts now need to be removed and created as transactions to a base stock. I had the same issue. Addition of new shares now becomes more intuitive and easier to manage. Even removal of shares now become easier to mailtain.
Stocks and shares is a more complex problem because companies (Stocks) contain shares. A collection of stocks, creates a portfolio. Transactions are performed against a company(stock) in two ways. Depending on the type of transactopn you either add or subtract shares from a stock in a portfolio or you make transactions with the company in transfering money to or from that company in the form of purcgase, sale or dividends recieved.
I am not sure how you have implemented the existing data. If you have used the Stocks as companies with single transactions, then the conversion becomes easy. If you have added extra shares against the same company, this becomes more difficuly, because all the shares belong to the same company.
Personally, I found the initial concept harder to use, interpret and maintain and the updated implementation, once converted, should be easier to maintain. The user interface may need refinements allow the forms to be more intuitive.
Thank you Stefano, actually I upgraded to the latest relase but I did not already made any change to the Portfolio because I am making some simulation in a new empty database, first to understand how it works and second to find the best way to migrate the existing protfolio to better fit my use. I would say that now I have a better understanding of the logic and I think in a few trial I will be ready to upgrade the portfolio. The only thing that still it is hard to understand for me is why for any new item in the portfolio the system create an account in the Stock group with the relevant transaction. I realized that a similar behavior is also in the assets; when you create one asset a transaction is atomatically created under the asset itself.
Anyway I think that MMEX is still the best open source money manager.
Stocks and Assets have a different behavior to the standard account transactions. Therefore money cannot be passed from a standard account to a stock or asset. The only way to do this is to associate a standard account to a stock/share or asset account. The share account or share account entry links a share transaction entry to a normal transaction entry. Similar for Assets.
Example: In 1.2.x we cannot transfer money to a stock or asset. The transfer transactions act as a pendulium. What is taken from one account is put into another. In 1.3.x any transaction created for a share can be tied to any account. This gives us the ability to transfer money to stocks or assets. The creation of a Share account is made for simplification. The same mechanism is used for Assets.
For stocks, there are two sides of the equasion. We create a share account for the company stock. This allows us to transfer money from our stock to a normal bank account, because on the money side, the share account is the same as a bank account. On the other side of the stock equasion the stock entry in the portfolio view allows sub transactions in the form of share purchase or sales and link to share account to determine where the money came from.
In the Share account, we maintain two types of transactions. One dealing with real money that we transfer to it, or get money from it in the form of dividends. The other is the conversion of money to shares and are stored in the portfolio view. Editing any transaction will automatically give us the appropriate dialog being a normal transaction or a share transaction,
With assets, there is a similar behavior that we could not transfer money fron am asset to our accounts. 1.3.x introduces an asset account or an entry for an asset in any account we desire.
When we attempt to edit one of these entries, it is identified as an asset entry or a norman entry and is treated accordingly.
Have you had a look at the help provided? Does this provide sufficient informaton for the user?
If not, what does it need to make the explanation better?
Thank you again for your reply. Like I said now the approach is really more powerful. The english Help is better explained compared with the Italian, that's why I always rely on English version. Nevertheless it is always better to test the features on a new database and then upgrade the one that you commonly use. To me was not useful, untill I tested it, the transactions that you create while you manage stoks, because those transactions happened before the time I started to use MMEX so it creates a record that I need to balance because it is befote the first transaction in my Account. For my purpose 1.3.1 is more than enough given that I have to correctly upgrade my database.
Very good Job! Thanks again.
I have improved the tooltips on the Stock New/Edit dialog to better clarify how this now works.
On creating a new Stock, the Stock dialog will automatically close after the Share transaction is entered. Ref GitHub: https://github.com/moneymanagerex/moneymanagerex/pull/1164