Multiple cost basis currencies

[Lev Aronsky]

Hi,

I'm new to beancount, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it for my needs. Right now, I'm stuck on tracking my portfolio.

I'm from Israel, and trade in US ETFs (VOO, for example). So, in my portfolio, I have cash in ILS, cash in USD, and US stocks.

In Israel, capital gains in foreign stocks are normalized against exchange rate fluctuations. I.e., my cost basis for calculating capital gain taxes is in ILS. However, since the trading is done in USD, ideally that's how I'd like to write everything down in beancount. Unfortunately, when trying to do that, I receive errors. The only way I can write down my purchases in USD leaves the cost basis in USD, as well - and then, I can't tell my real capital gains.

Using ILS for cost basis raises another problem: the rates I download from the Internet are for stocks denominated in USD. I also have the rates for USD/ILS on the same days, but it doesn't seem like beancount cares. So when looking at the market value of my portfolio, it shows me just the original cost basis, since there are no VOO/ILS prices present in the file. I can add prices of stocks in ILS, but that feels like an ugly solution to me.

How would you suggest I proceed?

[Martin Blais]

On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 10:11 AM Lev Aronsky <aro...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I'm new to beancount, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it for my needs. Right now, I'm stuck on tracking my portfolio.

I'm from Israel, and trade in US ETFs (VOO, for example). So, in my portfolio, I have cash in ILS, cash in USD, and US stocks.

In Israel, capital gains in foreign stocks are normalized against exchange rate fluctuations. I.e., my cost basis for calculating capital gain taxes is in ILS. However, since the trading is done in USD, ideally that's how I'd like to write everything down in beancount. Unfortunately, when trying to do that, I receive errors. The only way I can write down my purchases in USD leaves the cost basis in USD, as well - and then, I can't tell my real capital gains.

There's no specific feature that calculates this for you, but if you have the exchange rates, you could write a script that translates all postings to your gain/loss accounts and converts the amounts to ILS. You could produce a table of that which you'd then use to fill in your tax information. What  I'm saying is that this can be derived data

Using ILS for cost basis raises another problem: the rates I download from the Internet are for stocks denominated in USD. I also have the rates for USD/ILS on the same days, but it doesn't seem like beancount cares. So when looking at the market value of my portfolio, it shows me just the original cost basis, since there are no VOO/ILS prices present in the file. I can add prices of stocks in ILS, but that feels like an ugly solution to me.

Yes, don't add artificial prices in ILS, it wouldn't make sense.

If you use the shell, you can use a conversion function to convert the values to ILS.

(The web interface doesn't do that, but it's slated to be removed anyway.)

How would you suggest I proceed?

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