On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 1:13 AM, Luke <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, 8 Aug 2011, Chris Travers wrote: > >> First I think this is a great idea. However I have a few questions: > > Thanks.:) > >> 1) What segments of users are most likely to benefit from this? > > Interesting. I'm not sure, actually. Not even sure how you define > segments, but I'll take a stab. > > Any business that stores standby capital in trackable security > instruments, be they stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or even CDs. > Basically, anyone who stores money or invests money, in a way which can > not be tracked by holding it in a cash account (savings, money market), > and applying interest to some income account.
Ok, so basically we are talking about any business which stores money which are not cash equivalents (i.e. very short-term bonds would be cash equivalents, ones maturing after 30 days or more would not be). > > I think this might also apply to certain non-profits, although I'm not > sure how big a segment that is for us. > > To my knowledge, which is admittedly limited, the methods discussed in the > article I referenced (cost or equity), only apply if you are some sort of > corporation or corporate-like entity. It may be that individuals, > partnerships, and soul pros would have to handle this differently, and > this would not be a useful module for that class of user, except as a > tracking device. I.E. the tracking of events or values might be useful, > but the resulting asset account would not. I can't imagine it being different for sole proprietorships. > Then again, maybe I'm wrong about how such entities handle these > things--I've never invested as an individual or similar class, but always > through corporate-like structures. Well, the concerns of an individual might be different. An individual might want to sell stocks that are higher-priced and buy ones that are believed to be undervalued. I don't think this affects the accounting side, but it means additional functionality in tracking market prices might need to be added at some point. > >> 2) What new markets would we be able to reach by including such a module? > > The most honest answer I can give, is probably none. This is more of a > value added concept for existing or future users--I don't really see this > as a decision point feature for someone. > That said, if it's done well, and the other FOS accounting packages don't > do something like it, it may be a decision point for someone who > definitely has the intent to use such a feature extensively. > > At the moment, my business, and that of one of my customers, would > definitely use such a feature, which prompted my proposal of it. Ok, so along with Alvin's comment that makes three. > > > Also if there are a significant number of users out there who would >> benefit from it today, it might be possible to spread the effort >> and/or cost around. > > I will be very interested in community response to this--how often do > users in the SMB space, do any kind of investing with free or dedicated > capital through their businesses which use LSMB? I am also going to check with some of my customers when I have the chance. > >> If not, then what is the absolute minimum we >> would need to do to make life just a little easier for folks who need >> to track this sort of thing? > > I have spent the last two hours going through potential ways to answer > that question. > > The problem seems to be that the absolute minimum, while it will work, is > not scalable, at least not in the versions I've come up with. By > scalable, I should say that it can not be enhanced later, without > requiring the user to re-input all associated data in a new form. Here is my thinking: Absolute minimum: * Enter company info, positions purchased, position type, total stock issued by firm, relevant gl accounts, and cost. On sale enter positions sold. relevant gl account and sellprice. Generate GL entries. * Allow a simple report of investments and their purchase price. Equity accounting and additional reports could be added later. Also there are several ways such a module could be made to happen. One would be through sponsored development, and the other could be through coordinated contributions of code. Right now I am busy enough getting 1.3 out the door that I'd just as soon get code contributions than financial ones (need not be Perl, since 90% of the work is likely to be db design and stored procedures so anything which gets us closer to those is helpful). Hope this helps, Chris Travers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ uberSVN's rich system and user administration capabilities and model configuration take the hassle out of deploying and managing Subversion and the tools developers use with it. Learn more about uberSVN and get a free download at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/wandisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Ledger-smb-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users
