Place holder transaction - to comment data register

[rlaggren]

Hi Mark

While it may seem unusual procedure, I have found my understanding of decisions when later I look at work I've done, is greatly improved if, included in data at the point of interest I can place brief comments. It can save hours of head scratching later, simply to know that, yes, I was aware and made a decision here - especially in cases where I don't regularly work on a particular subject. And I hope not to work on portfolios much once I get this lot cleaned up and choices made, but I would definitely like to minimize head scratching and re-researching in the next years when I do get into the portfolio. The PortfolioList and the DataRegister are ground 0 for most decisions and actions taken and it would be extremely nice, IMO, to place comments right at the point of possible confusion.

It's true that there are memo fields on most transaction, but they have quite limited text space and often a comment does not intrinsically relate to a particular transaction. Also, the the comments I receive from dl'd transactions frequently get truncated, removing important and relevant info; part of my "cleanup" has been to cross reference these transactions with info found on the Fidelity website and rewrite the comments. (I haven't counted the text, but doubling size of the memo fields might catch all the dl'd data. 1000 characters would be even better, albeit mostly unnecessary; but storage is pretty cheap.) In clearing up the history of 50+ holdings so far, I've found a need for a comment transaction maybe three or four times. IOW, it's not a daily newsletter sort of thing. But it helps tremendously (hours) weeks, months, years later on. _This_ I have found out repeatedly over years of research and paper work.

I look now for a way to embed comments in the transaction stream shown in the DataRegister. Absent a COMMENT transaction, a no-op placeholder with a date and a text field, my inclination is to use some available transaction with zero value which affects no totals or reports in any way and only can be noticed in the DataRegister display. A Distribution/AccountFee transaction with a zero value would appear to fill the bill.

Can you say if this transaction with value 0 meets my requirements? Ie. does not affect any calculations or appear or influence any reports producible in FM?

The image shows the typical use of this type of comment, as well as an example of my use of the memo in a TransferIn transaction. In this holding there are 9 more transactions over a period of three succeeding months with the same share qty and varying "+" or "-" signs in front. The end result was the correct data in and most likely that hiccup in their systems will never matter. But I want it's occurrence to be displayed right there with info on the holding. Money has been played with and at some point it may (I surely hope not) become important. Those 9 transactions were _not_ in the dl'd data and only became obvious when I went looking on the site; and I can see why Fidelity removed them from the dl stream - awkward, embarrassing, and they would make a real mess for anybody trying to glance at the DataRegister and get an overview of what's been happening with that holding.


Thanks
Rufus

[Mark]

Hi Rufus,

There are "Notes" that you can record for this purpose. They are dated as well, but don't appear alongside transactions in the Data Register. In the Data Register, look at the "Data Type" drop-down and choose "Notes". I'd recommend using those, to keep your transactions clean and without fake transactions. They also appear as markers on graphs, and will display in an Investment Transaction report. If you really want to record placeholder transactions to use as notes, you can do as you've done. It won't affect any calculations, since it is $0. You might consider renaming one of the unused distribution types, and using that instead of Account Fee, so you can separate them out easier. I'd consider using Notes though, as this is what they were designed for.

[rlaggren]

Mark

Thanks for enlarging on this. I actually would like to see the note inline with the transactions because that's where essentially all my work is done. I considered Notes option, although I didn't know (or recall) that it showed a marker in the graphs. That's a great feature, but I do essentially all my work in the two lists, the portfolio and the transactions, during "maintenance". Perhaps in the future this will change, but right now it looks like it will be much better to have particular notes or comments visible in my work flow where I'm likely to notice them when scratching my head over why something doesn't add up or looks strange in that stream...

Using a custom renamed transaction sounds like TheWay. I missed that option completely.

For a whiz-bang feature, maybe someday place markers in the DataRegister at the point where there are dated notes. This is slightly akin to what we see with spreadsheets in a cell that has a note attached. Even so, it's easy to miss notes in a spreadsheet. So, perhaps just an option "Show Notes" in the bottom of the DataRegister below the buttons would serve users' needs better. And (on a roll here) an option in Note to set a background color so when a note displays in a list, it stands out. Sweet! <g>

Thank you much.
Rufus

[MattGMT]

Hi Mark,
I would certainly welcome this request to expand on the existing 'Notes' feature.
Also, I am sure that this has been mentioned before but I do think the above feature could be further enhanced with the addition of 'attachments'; not necessarily saved in the data layer but rather as a link to a specified folder.
Regards,
Matt

[Mark]

Hi Rufus and Matt,

Okay, thanks for the ideas/feedback.