tutorial on multi-currency accounting

[Mike Alexander]

--On March 7, 2007 9:48:56 AM -0500 Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> 
wrote:

> Mike Alexander <mta at umich.edu> writes:
>
>>>> - xaccTransScrubImbalance now scrubs the transaction two ways.  It
>>>> makes sure the value is balanced, and it makes sure that the
>>>> amounts balance separately for each commodity in the transaction.
>>>> This makes  capital gain splits as created by scrubbing lots
>>>> unnecessary, although  existing capital gains splits won't hurt
>>>> anything.
>
> I'm trying to understand how do you this.  Let's say you have a simple
> transaction:
>
>    TXN(USD)       Debits     Credits
>    Cash(USD)                 $100
>    Cash(EUR)      EUR65
>
> What would your scrubber do?  Note that there is no gain or loss in
> this transaction by itself.  The gain/loss only occurs when I move
> back to USD with a second transaction in the opposite direction.

It would add splits similar to those suggested in Peter's documents:

                    Debits      Credits
  Currency:USD      $100
  Currency:EUR                  EUR65

After this the transaction is still balanced for value (assuming all 
values are $100 as they should be).

You're right that you don't have any realized gain/loss until you 
convert it back, but at any time after this transaction is entered you 
may have an unrealized gain/loss.  The value of the Currency parent 
account will be this unrealized gain/loss assuming you've entered the 
appropriate exchange rates in the price editor.  This is explained 
fairly well in Peter's documents and seems to work right in GnuCash.

     Mike