Personally, I trade some stock options, and I'm also thinking about making my trade records automatically ingested into my beancount books. The frequency is fairly low for me, so it probably is lower than the day trader's volume. I haven't spent too much effort on this end yet, but I built beanhub-import and open-sourced it a while back, and I think it could help your case a little bit on the importing part:
https://github.com/LaunchPlatform/beanhub-import It's a rule-based beancount import engine designed to act like a data pipeline system. As long as you can export your trading records as a CSV file or any other machine-readable format, you should be able to build your own beanhub-extract <https://github.com/LaunchPlatform/beanhub-extract> extractor class to help read the transactions from the file. I envision you can write beanhub-import rules to ingest your trading records like this: inputs: - match: "import-data/my_broker/*.csv" config: extractor: my_broker default_file: "books/{{ date.year }}.bean" prepend_postings: - account: Assets:Bank:US:MyBank amount: number: "{{ amount }}" currency: "{{ currency | default('USD', true) }}" imports: - name: Injest trading records match: extractor: my_broker actions: - file: "books/{{ date.year }}/{{ date.month }}.bean" txn: narration: "Trade stock {{ symbol }}" metadata: - name: "margin" value: "{{ margin }}" postings: - account: "Assets:Bank:US:MyBroker" amount: number: "{{ -amount / stock_price }}" currency: "{{ symbol }}" price: number: "{{ stock_price }}" currency: "USD" Then, when you have the data updated in the import folder, you can run the import command (you need to install beanhub-cli): bh import You should have new transactions generated and updated automatically for you like this: 2024-07-03 * "Trade stock TESLA" import-id: "437826b4-be1a-48fa-8c43-b387b46fed80" import-src: "import-data/my_broker/2024-07-03.csv" margin: false Assets:Bank:US:MyBroker 15.00 TESLA @ 247.38 USD Assets:Bank:US:MyBank -3710.70 USD As you can see, the transaction can be added with extra metadata like the "margin" flag in the example, so some extra trading relative info could be added for your other plugin to process them. Currently, you can insert transactions to simply buy and sell stock like that, but for options, there are expiring dates and strike prices. Sometimes, there could be a combination of options for different strategies, making simple stock symbols like TESLA insufficient. I am considering using a cost label lot, but I wonder if that would be enough for the particular use cases. Like this: 2024-07-03 * "Trade stock TESLA option $195 PUT 7/15" import-id: "437826b4-be1a-48fa-8c43-b387b46fed80" import-src: "import-data/my_broker/2024-07-03.csv" margin: false Assets:Bank:US:MyBroker 15.00 TESLA {"$195-PUT-7/5"} @ 247.38 USD Assets:Bank:US:MyBank -3710.70 USD I am still deciding what the best practice is for trading complex options. Are you trading stocks, options, or other commodities? Is the beanhub-import example I just showed you good enough for data importing for your use case? If you have some use cases that I think make sense to add, I might be able to add a few features to beanhub-import to help make your data importing much easier. On Monday, June 17, 2024 at 10:28:03 AM UTC-7 marcio...@gmail.com wrote: > Hi, Martin, > > Thanks for taking the time to answer. > > I think I have already, but will again have a look at johnny. > > Regards. > > Marcio > > On Fri, 14 Jun 2024 at 23:31, Martin Blais <bl...@furius.ca> wrote: > >> I've developed Johnny for that purpose ( >> https://github.com/edgebips/johnny), in the context of retail trading >> (not pro). >> It's not really in a state that's easy for others to use TBH. >> In theory it could be, but if you used it you'd be 90% sure to his some >> corner case that's not supported, e.g. some transaction type I've never >> encountered and don't support. >> >> Broadly speaking, for that use case you need >> - more sophisticated transaction types wit some common fields >> - the volume of transactions is such you'd want this in a table format, >> one line per transaction, ideally going to a database. Beancount is >> designed to be user-editable and too verbose. >> - you'd also want to automate everything (ingest the data from your >> brokers, normalize it in the same schema, etc) with as little manual >> intervention as possible. >> - Beancount doesn't handle derivatives with multipliers too great right >> now (futures and options), you have to multiply by hand, its symbology has >> to be extended to support that (Johnny does that fine) >> So Beancount is fine for investments, say ~100 equities or funds >> positions with dividends and monthly transactions, but when you're talking >> about 1k-100k or more trades/month - still retail level but a bit more >> dedicated - Beancount isn't a great solution for that. >> >> >> >> >> On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 9:16 AM Marcio A. Vianna F. (mvianna) < >> marcio...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Just to make it clear: I've been thinking of using Beancount for general >>> personal finance (tracking expenses, earnings etc.), with investment >>> portfolio lumped up as "holdings" or so. These "holdings" would be updated >>> from time to time with profits/losses or profit/losses accrued. Only the >>> details of the actual single trades would have to be managed in the other >>> application. >>> >>> Marcio >>> >>> On Friday 14 June 2024 at 09:52:44 UTC-3 Marcio A. Vianna F. wrote: >>> >>>> Hi, all. >>>> >>>> Are you aware of accounting software targeted at a similar audience as >>>> Beancount, but meant for trading taxes, tracking and accounting? In common >>>> with Beancount, desirable features would be: >>>> >>>> * flexible (customizable) >>>> * extensible >>>> * python >>>> * for small businesses or personal use >>>> * scalable at least to a certain point >>>> >>>> All solutions I find on the internet are too limiting and may demand >>>> worksome workarounds. >>>> >>>> The issue has been brought up some times on this board and it seems it >>>> is now acknowledged that this kind of application isn't in the scope of >>>> Beancount or its future developments (correct me if I'm wrong). I've been >>>> away from Beancount for some years, so that I cannot recall exactly what >>>> made Beancount a less-than-perfect fit for trading, but I think two needed >>>> features would be: time of transaction, mean value of inventories, >>>> inventories with negative balance (short positions). I could give up the >>>> plain-text advantages for sqlite or other rdms if needed. >>>> >>>> Any tips in this regard? >>>> >>>> Many thanks. >>>> >>>> Marcio >>>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Beancount" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to beancount+...@googlegroups.com. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/71915cd3-429c-4d74-98d6-57b5586c3e08n%40googlegroups.com >>> >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/71915cd3-429c-4d74-98d6-57b5586c3e08n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Beancount" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to beancount+...@googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhPLuq8SfPg3LL2Q9XpjDFzqkMj%2BpS1CiyEscnwqCnMpmA%40mail.gmail.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhPLuq8SfPg3LL2Q9XpjDFzqkMj%2BpS1CiyEscnwqCnMpmA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. 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