Generic Transax Import and Accr Int on Bond Transax

[dlevy]

On a bond purchase, one often pays accrued interest to the seller. The documentation says:

"When recording a new transaction, investments with income style of "Bond Interest" will have an additional field for entering Accrued Interest."

Is there any way to get the accrued interest in through the Generic Transaction Import?

If not, is there any way to edit the existing bond purchase (from the Generic Transaction Import) to add the accrued income? I only see the fields for accrued income when doing a new transaction, not when I edit an existing transaction.

Same question for accrued interest received on bond sales.

Thanks,

David

[Mark]

Hi David,

Yes, you can add accrued interest for bond buys/sells in the generic import. These would be separate transactions from the actual buy/sell though. You'd have one BUY/SELL transaction, and then a second DIST_I to record the interest. For interest paid with a BUY, this would be a negative value, and for interest received with a SELL this would be a positive value.

If you want to manually enter accrued interest that you've already recorded a BUY/SELL for, just record a new distributed distribution of type interest.

[dlevy]

Mark,

Thanks. I can make that work. I do, however, have a nagging concern that I don't have time to think through fully just now...

Imagine a bond that pays interest in February and August. If you buy it in November 2013 and pay accrued interest, the payment reduces (taxable) income for 2014, not 2013. Yet reports out of FM will show the income in 2013.

Is that correct? Any suggestions to make tax reporting work?

Not a big deal....

Thanks,

David

[Mark]

Hi David,

Interesting question... One way would be to include a comment in the memo of the interest transaction, like "2014 interest". You could then run an Investment Transaction report in 2014 that filters by memo, and look for all transactions with this memo. I know it isn't an elegant solution, but it is the best option I can think of at the moment.