How can I track a valuable asset?

This document will talk you through tracking investments such as antiques or cars.

A lot of assets such as antiques have fluctuating prices and expenditure attributed to them in a similar way as shares or unit trusts. Tracking these investments in a similar way as a share will give you more information on how that asset is performing, including giving an accurate ROI.

To track an asset in this way follow these steps:

Create an Investment account for shares.

1. Select Lists and Accounts.
2. Select the New button at the top of the accounts list.
3. Select Investment as the type and then select Next
4. Give the account a name such as 'Austin Martin' and a description and click Next
5. Select the currency for the investment account and select Next
6. Select No for debiting the account by credit card or cheque and select Next
7. Select Shares, bonds, several unit trusts as the securities it will contain and select Next
8. Select No as the Tax exempt account; select next and Done on the final screen.

It will then bring up another wizard for setting up the investment.

1. On the initial screen select Next
2. Enter a name for the security such as 'Austin Martin' and a description
3. Select Share as the Type and select Next
4. Select the optional investment growth and asset class and select Next
5. When it asks you for the date to start tracking the investment enter the date you purchased the asset and select Next
6. Enter the number of shares as one and enter the purchase price as the cost per share. If there was and initial commission fee (such as a service charge by the auctioneer) also enter this here and select Next
7. Select no when it asks you if you would like to enter more securities to this account, select Next and then Done on the final screen.

The initial investment into this asset is now created and it will appear on your Portfolio View.

As the price increases or decreases you can enter this within the portfolio view under the update prices button as you would normally with a share or a unit trust.

If you have to purchase anything for the asset such as new tyres if the asset was car you can enter these into the investment.

To do this:

1. Go into the asset register, in our case the Austin Martin account.
2. Select Easy Actions and then Miscellaneous Expense
3. Type in the date the expense occurred and enter the security name
4. Type in the amount and enter a category for the expense, for the case of an asset it is probably better to have your own category, I have chosen Austin Martin with a sub account of repairs, which are expense accounts
5. Enter the Account you would like the money taken from in the transfer account box and select Okay.

You will also like to do this with any sales attributed to the investment.

To do this:

1. Go into the asset register, in our case the Austin Martin account.
2. Select Easy Actions and then Record an income event
3. Enter the security name and the transfer account
4. Type the income amount into the Miscellaneous box.
5. You will now see that you can access the category for miscellaneous box so enter a category for the expense. Again it is probably best to create a new category for this, in our case I have created a category called Austin Martin Inc. with a sub category of Sales both of which are income categories.
6. Enter the optional memo and select Okay.

By allocating both expenses and income to the asset we will now be given accurate performance reports which will show you the ROI (return of investment) of the asset.