What is wrong with this record?

[Alen Šiljak]

During the migration, I have identified a record that causes problems and I don't really understand why.

I am going through the trading documentation to understand the concepts better but if someone can point me in the right direction, that would be much appreciated.

The case seems rather simple:

```

1970-01-01 open Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE

1970-01-01 open Assets:Investments:Cash

1970-01-01 open Expenses:Commissions

2013-02-25 txn "Buy BYE"

  Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE         10595 BYE @ 0.47 YEN

  Expenses:Commissions                  19.95 YEN

  Assets:Investments:Cash            -4999.60 YEN

2014-06-02 txn "Sell BYE"

  Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE            -5000 BYE {0.47 YEN, 2013-02-25} @ 0.95 YEN

  Expenses:Commissions                     19.95 YEN

  ;Income:Investment:Capital-Gains         -2400.00 YEN

  Assets:Investments:Cash                4730.05 YEN

```

yet bean-check throws

```

No position matches "Posting(account='Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE', units=-5000 BYE, cost=CostSpec(number_per=Decimal('0.47'), number_total=None, currency='YEN', date=datetime.date(2013, 2, 25), label=None, merge=False), price=0.95 YEN, flag=None, meta={'filename': '/mnt/x/pim/beancount/test.bean', 'lineno': 13})" against balance (10595 BYE)

```

[Stefano Mihai Canta]

Replying from my phone, so I'll be quick. The first transaction requires to be booked at cost, but you only specified the price. 

10595 BYE {} @ 0.47 YEN

The empty bracket content {0.47 YEN} should be automatically filled out by beancount.

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[Alen Šiljak]

Aha, thank you very much! I need to read a bit more about this in the doc but also to work out if ledger2beancount can do this during conversion.

[Martin Michlmayr]

* 'Alen Šiljak' via Beancount <bean...@googlegroups.com> [2025-05-04 05:49]:

> During the migration, I have identified a record that causes problems and I
> don't really understand why.

> 2013-02-25 txn "Buy BYE"
> Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE 10595 BYE @ 0.47 YEN
> Expenses:Commissions 19.95 YEN
> Assets:Investments:Cash -4999.60 YEN

Stefano already answered your question but just to expand a bit.

Ledger treats costs ({...}) and prices (@ ...) as very similar whereas
there's an explicit difference in beancount.

So if we take your transaction:

2013-02-25 * "Buy BYE"

Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE 10595 BYE @ 0.47 YEN
Expenses:Commissions 19.95 YEN
Assets:Investments:Cash -4999.60 YEN

If you look at the ledger balance report with --lots, you'll see that
ledger added a cost:

ledger -f a1 bal :bye --lots
10595 BYE {0.47 YEN} [2013-02-25] Assets:Investments:Shares:BYE

But this is not how it works in beancount. You need to specify a cost
explicitly if you want one -- in many cases (e.g. cash / currencies) I
won't want FOO @ BAR to create a cost (ledger "lot).

People are often not aware of this in ledger-land because ledger
allows you to remove a lot that doesn't exist (*); which beancount
wisely doesn't allow.

(*) You only see the mess if you look at it with "bal --ledger".

--
Martin Michlmayr
https://www.cyrius.com/

[Alen Šiljak]

Thanks for the explanation, Martin.

The lot dates are already inferred from the transaction. I wonder why would the cost not be inferred from the price, either. It would be a shortcut of convenience.