Thank you for the help here. It sounds like the most straightforward option
for transferring accounts with average cost booking without realizing
nonexistent profit or changing the cost basis then is the final option you
mentioned.
I attempted the following transaction and receive an error "Too many
missing numbers for currency group 'USD'" .
2025-01-03 * "transfer"
Assets:Broker1:STOCK -20.00 STOCK {}
Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20.00 STOCK {USD}
On Friday, June 20, 2025 at 7:57:39 AM UTC-7 Martin Blais wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 6:47 AM Alex Kaufman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hello, I have been reading through docs and trying to make heads or tails
>> of how to do this operation. Recently I consolidated retirement accounts.
>> As part of this process my holdings were transferred over directly from one
>> account to the other. I am sure I am misunderstanding something but I have
>> been testing various methods for a while and cannot figure out the right
>> way to approach this problem. Any recommendations for ways to reframe the
>> problem or think about it differently instead of just accomplishing the
>> immediate goal are welcome and encouraged.
>>
>> It may be as simple as my misunderstanding price/cost or the cost and
>> market value views in fava. I could also be drastically over complicating
>> things. Thank you all in advance for your help! Below is an initial state
>> beancount file to provide a minimal example. I have also included two
>> examples of some potential transfer transactions to append to the setup
>> file and the reasons why they dont really work.
>>
>> Broker1 is set up as "NONE" bookkeeping due to the way the broker
>> provided statements. This was a major motivator for migrating to Broker2.
>>
>> option "operating_currency" "USD"
>>
>> 2024-01-01 open Assets:BankAccount
>> 2024-01-01 open Equity:Opening-Balances
>>
>> 2024-01-02 pad Assets:BankAccount Equity:Opening-Balances
>> 2024-01-03 balance Assets:BankAccount 100 USD
>>
>> 2024-12-31 open Assets:Broker1:STOCK "NONE"
>> 2024-12-31 open Assets:Broker2:STOCK
>>
>> 2025-01-01 * "invest 1"
>> Assets:Broker1:STOCK 10.00 STOCK {1.00 USD}
>> Assets:BankAccount -10.00 USD
>>
>> 2025-01-02 * "invest 2"
>> Assets:Broker1:STOCK 10.00 STOCK {2.00 USD}
>> Assets:BankAccount -20.00 USD
>>
>> *Example 1:*
>>
>> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
>> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {}
>> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 10 STOCK
>>
>> Here is one attempt I have tried. It sort of works in that there are no
>> errors shown in fava but in the cost and market value views it doesnt
>> convert to USD.
>>
>
> Here it doesn't know what to do; Do you want to exchange dollars? You're
> only saying STOCK units on the second posting.
> This gets resolved as
>
> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -20.00 STOCK {USD}
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20 STOCK {{40.00 USD}}
>
> (Use the "bean-doctor context" command)
> Regardless, this input is incorrect.
>
>
>
>>
>> [image: Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 9.50.10 PM.png]
>>
>> Example 2:
>>
>> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
>> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -20.00 STOCK {USD}
>> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20 STOCK {{40.00 USD}}
>>
>>
>> Another attempt I have made is to change the transfer according to the
>> syntax defined in github issue 476
>> <https://github.com/beancount/beancount/issues/476>. If I do not specify
>> the cost of the stock in broker 2 I get an error stating the transaction is
>> not balanced. However if I do specify the current price/cost of the stock
>> it seems to show that there has been a $10 negative balance to Broker 1. In
>> the MarketValue view this shows correctly..
>>
>
> But you don't have $40 of cost basis. You have $30 of cost basis. Try with
> that (which is correctd).
> It will resolve as
>
> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {1.00 USD, 2025-01-01} ; -10.0000 USD
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {2.00 USD, 2025-01-02} ; -20.0000 USD
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20.00 STOCK {1.50 USD, 2025-01-03} ; 30.00 USD
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> [image: Screenshot 2025-06-19 at 9.59.39 PM.png]
>>
>> Example 3:
>>
>> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
>> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -20.00 STOCK {} @ 2.00 USD
>> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20.00 STOCK {{40.00 USD}}
>> Income:Investment -10.00 USD
>>
>> This option resolves the confusion in both the cost and market value
>> views. However now we are including a sort of fake income that we havent
>> actually realized.
>>
>
> No. You're realizing the profit here and erroneously stepping up your cost
> basis to $40.
> This is what it resolves to:
>
> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {1.00 USD, 2025-01-01} @ 2.00 USD ;
> -10.0000 USD
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {2.00 USD, 2025-01-02} @ 2.00 USD ;
> -20.0000 USD
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20.00 STOCK {2.00 USD, 2025-01-03} ;
> 40.00 USD
> Income:Investment -10.00 USD ;
> -10.00 USD
>
>
>
>> It also requires that we know the exact amount of that income because
>> leaving the specific value blank to try to soak up any income results in
>> the error Too many missing numbers for currency group 'USD', In my case
>> I dont know the exact income value for each of the stocks coming over from
>> broker1 to broker 2 because it is a retirement account and is basically
>> using average bookkeeping.
>>
>>
>> If you're not selling you want to avoid realizing _any_ income.
> You want to close all the postings in the account prior to the transaction.
> You can either list all the postings using "bean-doctor context" and copy
> them over, or, use the total number of units, which should unambiguously
> resolve to all the postings.
>
> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -20.00 STOCK {}
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20.00 STOCK {USD}
>
> resolves to
>
> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {1.00 USD, 2025-01-01} ; -10.0000 USD
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {2.00 USD, 2025-01-02} ; -20.0000 USD
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 20.00 STOCK {1.50 USD, 2025-01-03} ; 30.0000 USD
>
>
> On the opening sice, if you want to replicate all the same postings, you
> could do this instead:
>
> 2025-01-03 * "transfer"
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {1.00 USD, 2025-01-01}
> Assets:Broker1:STOCK -10.00 STOCK {2.00 USD, 2025-01-02}
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 10.00 STOCK {1.00 USD, 2025-01-01}
> Assets:Broker2:STOCK 10.00 STOCK {2.00 USD, 2025-01-02}
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
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