how are multiple currency transactions supposed to work?

[Derek Atkins]

greg <gmott at ntlworld.com> writes:

> (gnucash-1.8.7) register, $US credit card account, new transaction,
> press split, enter 20 under Charge, select £UK expense account for other
> account, enter 10 under Payment, rightclick on the 10, select Edit
> Exchange Rate, enter .5, press OK, press enter, register shows
> unbalanced transaction (10.00 more needed under Payment), just as if
> both accounts were $US, or as if the exchange rate were 1:1, neither of
> which is true.  try to accept transaction, gnucash posts Rebalance
> Transaction popup.

AHA..  Yes, you entered an imbalanced transaction!  So, it's behaving
exactly correct here.

> is there something i missed?  is this how it is supposed to work?  am i
> supposed to keep an Imbalance account to receive all the bogus imbalance
> figures?

Yes, you missed the fact that you are always editing in the same currency!
Even when you choose an account of another currency, you always see ALL
numbers in the "current" currency.  So, when you have the US$ CC account
open, all values are in US$...

The imbalance is that you are entering two splits:

        US$ 20 credit to CC Acct (US$)
        US$ 10 debit to Expense Acct (£UK)

As you can CLEARLY see, this is imblanced.

First, when you're just entering a standard, two-split transaction there
is no reason to click on Split.  You just don't need to do it.

Second, you should enter all numbers as if they are in the currency of the
open account -- let the exchange rate dialog make the change to the "other"
currency.

Third, when you are creating a transaction you do not need to
specifically ask it to "edit exchange rate" -- it will bring it up
automatically if it thinks you need one.

> -greg

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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