When we enter a security purchase transaction and use a payor/payee that has an automatic entry for an income account the following occurs:

Enter "chg", the date, and the payor.
Fn automatically fills in the dividend income accout and changes "chg" to "dep".

We re enter "chg".

Then we click on the account and enter the asset number.

FN asks if we are acquiring an asset and we enter yes.

The cursor moves to the charge column and we enter the amount.

Then the multiple distribution screen appears. However, there is no place to enter acquisition date, quantity or ticker symbol. Why?

At the present time, we "null" the automatic entry and re enter the transaction. This is a lot more key strokes. In addition, we would prefer to simply over-ride the automatic entry.

quote:

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originally posted by Margaret Miles:
... enter a security purchase transaction and use a payor/payee that has an automatic entry for an income account ...

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You should have a payee for the purchase of a security and a separate payor for the income, not a payee/payor that tries to do both. These are two very different transactions. Trying to force the system to "remember" one of the transactions (as an automatic entry for the recording of income) and then "do" another transaction (overriding the automatic entry to post a purchase or a sale) will result in just the kind of problems your encountering.

I'm thinking that you might be trying to make one payee/payor do the work of several for reporting purposes. You might want to print one report "Transactions by Payee/Payor" for that one payee/payor that will show all of the activity for that security, including purchases, sales, income, and whatever else. If that is your purpose, here's a better way.

1. Set up separate payees and payors as I described above.
   
2. Then assign the same "set number" to all of the payees and payors you want to associate with one another.
   
3. Print your "Transactions by Payee/Payor" report, specifying the set number.
   
4. You'll get a report showing all of the transactions for all of the payees, payors, and payee/payors in that set number.
   

1) We keep data entry as simple and basic as possible so that we can use non-accounting personnel for this task.

2) How will the data entry person know that there is a "set" and which item in the set to use for the transaction being entered?

3) How will the data entry person know that a "set" needs to be implemented?

4) We have 50 entities, each with different payor/payees. Won't "sets" complicate matters? How will data entry keep the "sets" for each entity clear?

5) In the past, we found that if more than one payor/payee (for example Intel)was available on the drop down screen in data entry, that there were frequent errors in the selection of the correct Intel.

Based on your use of "sets", would you recommend the use of "sets" or delete the automatic entry?

I am going to discuss the marketable securities issues here. I will re-post the questions that pertain generally to “sets” and periodic transactions to the Transaction Entry forum.

The most important thing to take away from this discussion is that it is very important not to try to create one gigantic payee/payor that does “all things to all people.” Let’s assume we have a security called JONES INC.

Create the following accounts:

• (asset) JONES INC.
  
• (income) DIVIDENDS/JONES
  

• (Payee) Security Purchase/Jones
  
• (Payor) Dividend Income/Jones
  
• (Payor) Security Sale/Jones
  

1. When creating these three payees, use Transactions | Periodic Transactions to assign the same set number to each of them. Select a number that isn’t being used for another group of transactions. Let’s say for this example that we assign set number 101 to these three payees / payors.

2. Use the payee “Security Purchase/Jones” for the purchase of the security. (Important note: at this point, the fact that a set number has been associated with this transaction is unimportant. A data-entry person won’t even know that a set number is there.)

3. Use the payor “Dividend Income/Jones” to record dividend income. (Again, the fact that a set number is associated with this payee is irrelevant at this point.)

4. Use the payor “Security Sale/Jones” to record full or partial sales of the asset. (Still no use of the set number!)

5. When it comes time to prepare a report of all of the transactions pertaining to this security, you have a couple of choices. Report choice 1: simply print two reports, Transactions by Account report for the JONES INC. asset account, and a Transactions by Account report for the Dividend Income account.

6. Report choice 2: If you want all this data to be on one report, go to Reports and select Transactions by Payee/Payor. From the List box, select Transactions by Payee & Payor. Instead of typing in one Payee name, select Use Payee/Payor Set Number. Type in the set number (101 in this example) and select OK. Then select Screen to view the report. The report will list all of the transactions for all of the payees and payors in set 101. This will give you all of the activity for these 3 payees and thus all of the activity related to this asset.
   

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Renée Trudeau
Financial Navigator Service Provider