Entering brokerage account information
11/6/09 11:53 AM
Total Views: 18
How can I enter an opening balance of a brokerage account with 5 different securities. I need to track the basis of each security, but want to keep it all under the one brokerage account. Your asset description seems to give me bank, fixed assets, e
Answer
This was an idea I came up with when "senor" asked a similar question. You might want to consider something similar:
Set up one Investments (Current Asset) account. Set up the stocks as the sub accounts of this one (all of them current assets). The dividends, interest, and capital gains would be Income accounts.
When populating the first time the stocks accounts make the following journal entry:
Debit every stock's account with the cost of the shares you own. In the memo field you might want to type in the number of shares you own. It can be one long journal entry. When you got to the end of your stocks choose an equity account to balance the entry. (You can make up a new one called Owner's Equity or similar.)
You will have to set up a Bank type of account. At the time of receiving the interest or capital gain, make a deposit to the Bank account and under From Account put the Interest Income or Capital Gain. On the memo line you might want to put which stock the income is coming from. If you get dividends that is reinvested, you again make a deposit. You add firstly the Dividend Income account, then in the next row give the stock's asset account (under From Account) type in something like x number of shares from div. reinvestment and put the same amount you have in the line above but with a negative amount. Your total deposit will be zero.
If you buy a stock, write a check, under the account put the stock's subaccount. It might be an electronic transaction, not a real check. In that case don't use check numbers, rather something like e-check, or just leave the check number blank. But don't forget to put the number of shares you bought on the memo line.
If you sell a stock, you will need to make a deposit. Under From Account, put the stock's sub account. Be careful on the amount: it should be the original cost of the stock, not how much you received. In the second line use a new account: Gains/Losses on Sales. If you received more money than the stock's cost, put it in as a positive number. The deposit total should equal the amount you received. If you received less than the cost of the stock, put it in as a negative number. The deposit amount still should be the same amount as you received. On all the memo lines it wouldn't hurt if you could put something like: sold x number or YY shares.
I hope I could help.
Reka
