Date Options, Add New Investment

[sandie]

FM has a lot of positive things going for it, especially compared to IAM. Here are a few things that I would suggest.

1. ONE global DATE option for the whole program; maybe more choices of date styles.
A. Reports do NOT follow the set date option. Day & Month not padded for 2 digits.
B. Some "Portfolio Editor" columns display 4 digit years.
2. I would think that the data area (bottom) of the "Add New Investment" box should look exactly like the "B/S" box.
A. Price & Shares in reverse order?
B. NO Total box?
3. Neither entry box has a computed Total box AFTER Commissions & Fees are inserted so as to verify if there are any typos. You have to post and then look at the Data Register to verify the answer.
4. The Data Register has a very nice feature by having the program add an automatic description to some of the Cash entries (Distributed Dividend from ...). Interest Income is empty; description is blank. You have to manually type it every month.

There are many areas of the program that I have not looked at yet. Keep up the good work.

[Mark]

Hi sandie,

Thanks very much for the feedback, these are good points.

On #4, is the Interest Income transaction a purchase created as a corresponding default cash account entry from interest in another investment, or is this interest earned on the cash itself? Corresponding entries from another investment should all get this memo set. If it is an interest transaction on the cash itself, this memo comes from your broker when you retrieve transactions.

[sandie]

Hi Mark,

1. In reply to your question about #4, the interest is the monthly interest earned on the cash itself. Maybe I am entering it incorrectly. I have been using the "Distribution" box. I set the date, select the "Interest Income" dropdown, the "Reinvestment" box is already checked, put in the amount and post. If I leave the "Memo" box empty, that is how it appears in the "Data Register". So I type in a memo of Interest Income. Not a big deal even with 7 accounts each month.
2. I realize that I am in the minority, but I never retrieve transactions from my brokers. I prefer doing my own thing; and then reconcile. After being an accountant for 35 years, I have very little faith in other people's records ...

[Mark]

Hi sandie,

When you are recording the transaction, the memo will be recorded just as you type it into the transaction dialog. If you leave it blank, it will be blank. The other auto-generated memos you see are when using the default cash account feature, and the cash side of the transaction is recorded automatically by Fund Manager. The memo is to help identify the source of that cash entry.