What should I do if I want to import historical accounts and unit transactions

From Timetotrade

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Entering all historical financial transactions 3 Creating a set of accounts for a specific date 4 Further Reading

Introduction

If you have historical financial transactions that you would like to import into timetotrade currently there are two approaches that can be adopted:

1. enter all historical financial transactions such as unit purchases, share purchases etc
2. create a set of accounts that start on a specific date, such as the last day of a tax year

The following discusses the recommended method for implementing either approach. It is recommended that you familiarise yourself with the income/expenditure, investments and UVS tabs by creating some dummy transactions before starting to recreate your accounts in timetotrade.

Entering all historical financial transactions

This approach involves entering all historical income & expenditure, investment and lastly unit valuation transactions. It is recommended that the order of priority for entering these transactions is as follows:

1. Ledgers: Start by creating ledgers for the various accounts that you have, such as a ledger for your bank account and trading account(s)
2. Club Profile: If you are part of an investment club, use the club profile tab to add your club members to enable unit transactions to be associated with each club member.
3. Settings: Use the settings tab to set your 'main' ledger e.g. if you are part of an investment club, select the ledger that receives member subscriptions.
4. Investments: Enter all investment transactions such as the purchase and sale of shares, options and dividends received, into the investments section of your trading ledger(s). You can do this manually by keying in each transaction directly into timetotrade; alternatively you can import historical investment transactions from Spread Sheets or from COW or iValuation.
5. Income/expenditure: Enter income & expenditure transactions such as broker or bank interest in the Income/expenditure section of your ledgers. Exclude member subscriptions, account funding or money transfers between ledgers at this stage. You can do this manually or automatically using the Spread Sheet Import feature; if you have already imported your historical transactions from COW or iValuation at the previous step, then no further action is required as the income transactions will have been imported.
6. Ledgers: use the transfer funds function to manage the historical transfer of money between ledgers; this is required to avoid performance reporting issues that result in money not being allocated to a specific ledger while being transferred from one account to another.
7. Member Subscriptions and Unit Valuation: Lastly enter your member subscriptions and withdrawals (ie all of the historical unit transactions) either on an individual basis or using the club member subscription feature. If you are using timetotrade to calculate the unit value for historical entries, it is important to ensure that for each member subscription or withdrawal that the 'end date' is set to the date that the unit transaction occurred. By doing so the unit value, for the date that you are entering the historical unit transaction, will be pre-populated into the unit value field.
8. Income/expenditure: if necessary, use the income or expenditure 'adjustment' type to balance your accounts for a selected 'end date'. Typically there is no-need to adjust your cash balance, therefore if there is a discrepancy between your ledger cash balance and your real accounts, then please first check that all historical transactions have been entered correctly. It is not unusual to get discrepancy as a result of rounding errors in the figures that you enter into timetotrade if they are being imported from another accountancy package or spread sheet; if the cash balance difference is more than approximately 5 pence or 10 cents, please first check that all historical transactions that have been entered correctly before adjusting your ledger cash balance.

Creating a set of accounts for a specific date

This approach involves creating a set of accounts that reflects a specific date, such as the start of the current tax year. To a large extent historical transactions prior to the selected date are ignored, with the exception being historical share or option transactions for open positions on the date you have specified to start your accounts.

To create your accounts for a specific date, it is recommended that the order of priority for entering the relevant information is as follows:

1. Ledgers: Start by creating ledgers for the various accounts that you have, such as a ledger for your bank account and trading account(s)
2. Club Profile: If you are part of an investment club, use the club profile tab to add your club members to enable unit transactions to be associated with each club member.
3. Settings: Use the settings tab to set your 'main' ledger e.g. if you are part of an investment club, select the ledger that receives member subscriptions.
4. Investments: To ensure compliance with UK Bed & Breakfasting and Share Identification rules you must:
   1. For any open positions that you have on the specified date, enter all historical share or option transactions associated with a given share, as this is to ensure compliance with Share Identification rules.
   2. If you have sold any shares or options within the 30 days preceding the end of the UK tax year, which runs from the 6th of April through to the 5th of April on the following year, please enter these historical share or option transactions. This is to ensure compliance with Bed & Breakfasting rules whereby you have to identify shares and options that have been sold before the end of the tax year, and then purchased within 30 days after the start of the new tax.
   3. All other legacy share transactions can be ignored.
   4. Now enter subsequent share, option and dividend transactions that have occurred from the specified start date.
5. Income/expenditure: Enter income & expenditure transactions such as broker or bank interest that have since the specified start date in the Income/expenditure section of your ledgers, excluding account funding or money transfers between ledgers at this stage. Ignore all historical income or expenditure transactions that occurred prior to the specified start date.
6. UVS: Make a one of entry for the total number of units purchased and the amount paid for them for each club member or for yourself, on the specified start date that you are creating your accounts from. To do so use the 'add/edit' feature in the UVS tab. When you have entered all of the historical unit transactions via a single entry for the start date, then enter all unit transactions that occurred from the specified start date up to the current date on an individual basis or using the club member subscription feature.
7. Ledgers: use the transfer funds function to manage the transfer of money between ledgers from the specified start date; this is required to avoid performance reporting issues that result in money not being allocated to a specific ledger while being transferred from one account to another.
8. Income/expenditure: use the income/expenditure tab to set the 'opening (cash) balance' for the specified date. The 'opening balance' is a default entry in the income/expenditure section of each ledger, therefore if you can not see it display on the screen, change the start and end date until the opening balance entry is displayed. Edit the opening balance for each ledger to align the cash balance at the specified start date with the underlying account.
9. Make Adjustments: if necessary, use the income or expenditure 'adjustment' type to balance your accounts for a selected 'end date'. Typically there is no-need to adjust your cash balance, therefore if there is a discrepancy between your ledger cash balance and your real accounts, then please first check that all historical transactions have been entered correctly. It is not unusual to get discrepancy as a result of rounding errors in the figures that you enter into timetotrade if they are being imported from another accountancy package or spread sheet; if the cash balance difference is more than approximately 5 pence or 10 cents, please first check that all historical transactions that have been entered correctly before adjusting your ledger cash balance.

Further Reading

• Click here to return to the Accounts tab
• How to import investment transactions from Spread Sheets
• Frequently Asked Questions
• The Knowledge
• Investment Club User Manual table of contents
• Private Investor User Manual table of contents
• Capital Gains Tax User Manual

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