A Beancount Tool to Generate Beancount Transactions for Stock Buys, Sells, Splits.
Bcgt is adapted from the export.py program referenced from beangrow which was available in earlier beancount versions, written by Martin Blais, with the following:
Copyright: "Copyright (C) 2018 Martin Blais" License: "GNU GPLv2"
My changes are copyright to me [email protected], but nothing I'm doing is very complicated.
I was going through some transactions the other day and noticed I'd reversed Equity and Expenses amounts on sells. I normally have expenses positive amounts and so the amount must come from equity which then has to be negative.
I'm sorry, this was something I should have noticed earlier. You will need to go back and fix transactions from before.
My version 2.0.0 also had mistakes so that is also now fixed. Please update to at least v2.0.1.
Version 2.2.0 includes Split and a few other changes which are not breaking changes:
- If you are entering a lot of sell transactions that do not have a fee you can leave the zero off the end and it will be entered for you as zero. Do not be upset at seeing a negative zero in your transaction - it is a valid python Decimal value and I like having that there to remind me that the value should be negative if it is there at all.
- The price per share basis amount was previously just being set to whatever was typed in, but I decided I wanted those amounts to at least look like dollars and cents, so now those amounts from a buy are at least specified to two decimal places even if you type in a whole number.
export.py was not working on beancount v2 or v3 but I removed some parts that were giving errors so I could get a usable result. In no way is the output of bcgt meant to be compatible with what export.py produced, but there might be similarities.
I edited export.py to provide a list of lots of stock currently held. Enter commands to Buy, Sell or Split. What bcgt then does is generate beancount transactions that will get further processed by autobean-format (and since I am picky about how I like my transactions to look I use several options when running it). These transactions are printed to the terminal and they are also placed into a file in either a default location or one you specify via the --dest parameter. The main rationale for using this program is that it finds all of your current lots for you (so you don't have to search for them) and it also does the math and formatting.
After making any change all the files will be rescanned and the list will be redisplayed.
It is a very simple command line interface if you are familiar with the export.py program I have currently kept all the existing options and just added a few more.
To Buy 10 shares of ABT at 112.00 type in "B 10 ABT 112.00" to generate the beancount transaction which will then get put into a temporary file. To Sell you would type in "S 10 ABT 120.00 0.05" (the last number 0.05 is the fee the broker charges you which will be subtracted from your gains or added to your losses). To Split you would type in "X ABT 2 FOR 1".
When Done type in D.
$ python bcgt.py --help ledger.bc
usage: bcgt.py [-h] [-dest DESTINATION] [-C CURRENCY] [-s] [-f]
[-c OUTPUT_COMMODITIES] [-a OUTPUT_ACCOUNTS] [-p OUTPUT_PRICES]
[-r OUTPUT_RATES] [-m OUTPUT_POSTINGS] [-o OUTPUT]
filename
List Unsold Lots and Generate Buy, Sell and Split Transactions.
The primary purpose of this script is to generate Buy, Sell and Split
beancount transactions. If a destination path and file name is supplied
the results will be appended to that location (the path and directory
must already exist) otherwise a default location will be used.
The secondary purpose of this script is to:
- Produce a table of postings for the assets and liabilities
- Produce a table of per-account attributes
- Produce a table of per-commodity attributes
- Join these tables
- Output them to a CSV file.
Each of these can be output to a file.
Note: This version of the script has been modified to ignore some errors
and to not rearrange the order so it may no longer provide the same
output as the original version.
positional arguments:
filename Beancount input file
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-dest DESTINATION, --destination DESTINATION
Destination of generated transactions
-C CURRENCY, --currency CURRENCY
Override the default output currency (default is first
operating currency)
-s, --switch-acct Override the default account to REG (default is non-
taxable ROTH account)
-f, --switch-lot-pref
Override the default lot sale selection order to
FIFO(default is LIFO)
-c OUTPUT_COMMODITIES, --output_commodities OUTPUT_COMMODITIES
CSV filename to write out the commodities table to.
-a OUTPUT_ACCOUNTS, --output_accounts OUTPUT_ACCOUNTS
CSV filename to write out the accounts table to.
-p OUTPUT_PRICES, --output_prices OUTPUT_PRICES
CSV filename to write out the prices table to.
-r OUTPUT_RATES, --output_rates OUTPUT_RATES
CSV filename to write out the rates table to.
-m OUTPUT_POSTINGS, --output_postings OUTPUT_POSTINGS
CSV filename to write out the postings table to.
-o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
CSV filename to write out the final joined table to.
The default Sell lot order is LIFO, but there is the switch -f to change that to FIFO. The default account is a ROTH account but there is the switch -s to change that to REG. All of these can be changed in the source code to fit your account preferences (along with the account to get funds from or to put funds into).
If you sell more shares than are in the first lot available this program will keep selling lots in the preferred order to fit your desires. The fee is split proportionately among the different lots, but it may not be accurate in reflecting what the stock brokerage shows, so it may really be best to sell only within one lot at a time (at least until I can find out what the formula actually is - I've only had the fees given to me as a single amount per chunk of shares sold, but there is no mention of which lot is being sold other than my own records and looking at the PnL history - they certainly are not as clear as I am in my records). This code will also sell a part of a lot. Or if you want to sell all of your shares you can put in a big number and it will sell all your lots and then stop when they're gone.
You can change it to whatever you like, but I use a combination of the stock symbol, the date and time down to the second. If you need finer resolution than that you could add microseconds or a random string of some sort.
If you are generating Buy transactions around midnight the date of the transaction and the lot label will change. Remember that the lot labels I am generating are reflecting the date and time that you are typing them in using this program, if you want the actual date and time of the transaction you would have to edit the output to change those values. I'm usually entering my own transactions in pretty close to when I am making the trades so if I'm off it isn't by much.
With the 1.0.0 version you can specify a location to append the transactions by using the --dest option on the command line and as a part of that specification include the path and filename. As an example:
$ python bcgt.py --dest tree/Assets/SB/SCH/latest.bc ledger.bc
The ledger.bc supplied in this release will pick up ANY added files with the .bc extension in the tree/Assets/SB/SCH directory.
By default I am not changing or adding to existing files in the account hierarchy other than the default path and file. Once you are satisfied that the latest transactions are correct you can move them to other files. I recommend this cautious and examined approach along with regular backups. I do not recommend using any other destination. Please make backups and test before risking a lot of work. And if you do mess things up even after being warned - it isn't my fault. So far I have not noticed anything odd happening.
What about /dev/null? Sure! If you want to take the output from the screen and don't want any transactions put anyplace else. Just use:
$ python bcgt.py --dest /dev/null ledger.bc
As usual you would need to have permission to access and to append to any destination file. I currently don't do any error checking on the destination.
Debian GNU/Linux testing.
Dependencies: Python, autobean-format, beancount.
I also set up virtual environments in python to run beancount so the different dependencies don't clash with my existing python system versions.
Split now works.
I make everything upper case when typed in so I don't have to wonder what the input looks like.
If you accidentally type in something that isn't a number where it should be you will get some rather unhelpful error messages - I need to improve that.
I have not had to add any new commodities/symbols to the commodities.bc file, but at some point I hope to make that work automatically. I usually edit prices.bc to add new symbols, but I also hope to get that to happen automatically.
Currently no error checking is done on the destination location or file or permissions.
Version 1.0.0 rescans all transactions each time a new transaction is generated and I no longer keep all of the transactions generated per run of the program in the out file (they are being appended to the latest file).
Version 2.0.1 fixes mistakes I made (update to at least version 2.0.1).
No errors or issues I'm aware of other than those I've noted here or up above.