Investments

[ideasguy]

As some of our Bank Genie users know from our recent communications, I'm planning to extend Bank Genie functionality to include Investments.
Read about Bank Genie here:
http://www.bankgenie.net

This is one of my Winter projects.

Eric Hardy has been very helpful on this subject. Thinking about it, the best way for me to make the software work is to do some Investing myself:)
That way, I'll see the transactions involved and how to track them and deal with that in the software.
Apart from a few shares in my ex-employers (now sold) I'm a bit rusty

To get this topic going the obvious question is - What do you recommend for an Investment(s)?
Shares, Bonds, Savings accounts etc? What are you watching?

For once, this topic should be of interest to all members - Gardeners and Bank Genie users alike.

[mikwell48]

I am very interested in this development - i purely for personal share buying and selling with links to the net worth part of the software and of course the banking side as well - I am already using a US system (Ace Money) which incorporates all these features so may be you can use these as well, with 'Yahoo finance', Google or Bloomberg as a source of day to day information.
Any other contribution I can make please contact me
Mike Creswell

[ideasguy]

Thanks Mike. I'm hoping this topic will encourage all those with an interest in the Investments feature to post a message so we can see who's "on board" and I can keep them in the loop as we make progress.

[peter1925]

To have Investments in the accounting could be very useful but it seems to me quite complicated. If you have a number of stocks and ETFs (and other) that change value continuously it would be necessary to have a connection to some exchange that would supply the information live. such as NYSE and many others. If the value of a  stock is not currest is not much use.
To buy and sell stock on Internet is a good way to be in the markwet. I like Charles Schwab the best. There is a lot to do with taxes as well.

[ideasguy]

Hi Peter, and its very nice to hear from you and to have you looking in on this topic.
Yes, its a complex feature to add, but I'm sure we can manage it.

RE:

If you have a number of stocks and ETFs (and other) that change value continuously it would be necessary to have a connection to some exchange that would supply the information live

I'm hoping to make Bank Genie do exactly that Peter.
The software already refreshes currency conversions for users who have multi currency accounts. Hopefully this will be something similar (we shall see!)

Thanks for your recommendations on Charles Schwab. I'd very much value your knowledge of the financial institutes in the US as this project develops.

[ideasguy]

I'm now writing the import program.
Sample files would be much appreciated.
For anyone willing to do this, Select an Investment account and export to a QIF file.
Edit the QIF file (using Notepad) and change the values to remove sensitive information and send as an email attachment. The more examples the quicker I can get this working.
Many thanks folk.

[ideasguy]

Many thanks to Barry Landy, Eric Hardy and Mike (our new member from NZ) for emailing QIF files for testing. I now have two Quicken Investment files and one MS Money Investment file for importing, development and testing.
Past experience has shown that data can vary from different program versions, so additional sample Investment file extractions in QIF format would be much appreciated.