Starting (Trading) Journal: To Pad Or Not To Pad?

[david e]

Hello, as I recently discovered Beancount and decided to use it for tracking my trading activities (and also my most important private financial accounts) I have to get started somehow (as a non-dev). 

As described in the docs, there is a Pad function that allows me to open a balance without exactly knowing the amount I need to match. I am not sure if I have to use it or if another way suits my plan as well.

I do have a trading activity going back 3-4 years with some positions still open, both cryptocurrencies and stocks (the ones older than one year are free of taxing). 

the stocks are basically pretty easy to add as I have a date and cost basis. with the cryptocurrencies I am not that sure, as I have sold ETH to get another coin – I guess I have to get each cost basis per position and just add it manually but I won't be able to recreate the history of ETH ins and out. (this is way I tend to sum them all up in one opening balance with cost basis but ignoring the ETH tx for now, but I don't like it as it doesn't print the whole picture). Of course I do have all transactions available via Etherscan or Zerion and could in theory rebuild every tx (I hope).

Would you recommend to start the journal like exactly today, or with the beginning of the year or should I go back some years in order to list the trades matching the date I bought them?

I know the question isn't pretty specific and I am not looking for scripts as I will start with manually entries for the beginning. Guess I am more interested in your approach and some shared experience in this field. 

thanks!

[Martin Blais]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 11:37 AM david e <in...@davidebner.de> wrote:

Hello, as I recently discovered Beancount and decided to use it for tracking my trading activities (and also my most important private financial accounts) I have to get started somehow (as a non-dev). 

Welcome!

 

As described in the docs, there is a Pad function that allows me to open a balance without exactly knowing the amount I need to match. I am not sure if I have to use it or if another way suits my plan as well.

The Pad directive only works for things not held at cost.

For commodities with a cost basis, you can enter a single transaction manually that will open the account at a particular point in time.

 

I do have a trading activity going back 3-4 years with some positions still open, both cryptocurrencies and stocks (the ones older than one year are free of taxing). 

the stocks are basically pretty easy to add as I have a date and cost basis. with the cryptocurrencies I am not that sure, as I have sold ETH to get another coin – I guess I have to get each cost basis per position and just add it manually but I won't be able to recreate the history of ETH ins and out. (this is way I tend to sum them all up in one opening balance with cost basis but ignoring the ETH tx for now, but I don't like it as it doesn't print the whole picture). Of course I do have all transactions available via Etherscan or Zerion and could in theory rebuild every tx (I hope).

You should a build a one-off script to print out your initial cost bases and lots.

Then enter that into Beancount.

This is going to be a one-time task if you then keep your ledger up-to-date.

 

Would you recommend to start the journal like exactly today, or with the beginning of the year or should I go back some years in order to list the trades matching the date I bought them?

I would caution you the route to attempting to go all the way back in time and reconstruct everything. There's always time for you to do that later.

When starting out, I think the best way is to setup the initial state (with some opening balances transactions) and then work towards regularly automating and updating your accounts.

Once you're done that for a while and feel like it's a realistic amount of overhead (it's worth it to you), then contemplate going all out back in time (I did, like 10 years or so, went a bit crazy at the time).

I know the question isn't pretty specific and I am not looking for scripts as I will start with manually entries for the beginning. Guess I am more interested in your approach and some shared experience in this field. 

thanks!

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