Financial
Provides specialized function for computing the Irregular Internal Rate of Return (XIRR).
The financial extension in PostgreSQL provides specialized functions for financial calculations, particularly for computing the Irregular Internal Rate of Return (XIRR). It enables handling cash flows with irregular timing, similar to spreadsheet functions like XIRR in Excel or LibreOffice.
Your Nile database arrives with financial
extension already enabled, so there’s no need to run create extension
.
Creating and Populating transactions
Table
Let’s create a sample table to store financial transactions with dates and cash flows:
Calculating the Irregular Internal Rate of Return (XIRR)
To compute the XIRR for an account using pg_financial
:
Note: xirr(amount, transaction_date)
computes the internal rate of return for cash flows occurring at irregular intervals.
Negative amounts typically represent investments, while positive amounts represent returns.
Providing an Initial Guess for XIRR
The guess argument is an optional initial guess. When omitted, the function will use annualized return as the guess, which is usually reliable. This attempts to compute the XIRR starting with an initial guess of 10% (0.1).
Conclusion
The pg_financial
extension in PostgreSQL provides essential financial calculation capabilities, particularly for evaluating investment returns with irregular cash flows. It is useful for financial modeling and investment analytics.
For more details, refer to the pg_financial
GitHub repository.
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