Expense accounts should not be single currency

[Mike or Penny Novack]

>>Suppose there exists an expense account "electronics".  GNUCash forces all
>>transactions in an expense account to be in the same currency.  So buying a
>>PDA in the US and then buying a cellphone in Finland isn't an option.  The
>>two purchases should be treated as the same type of expense, but gnucash
>>limitations seem to force two separate expense accounts in this situation:
>>electronics-usd, and electronics-euro.
>>
>>How do you folks deal with this?
>>    
>>
>
>Use Subaccounts.
>
>Expenses:Elelectronic:USD
>Expenses:Electronics:EUR
>  
>
Perhaps. It's what you would do if you had "business operations" in 
multiple currencies/jurisdictions. But in that case you would probably 
have a separate set of books for the different businesses as each would 
have to do tax reporting on these operations locally (and then perhaps 
also "at home"). If the situation is just that the business (operating 
in one jurisdiction) sometimes had transactions in a foreign currency, 
the more normal way of handling this would be to record the amount of 
the expense as the cost (in the primary currency) at the time of the 
purchase transaction.

Do you have bank accounts, etc. in these multiple currencies? So that 
you are holding assets in foreign currencies and so subject to 
fluctuation of exchange rates Or are you just purchasing foreign payment 
orders as needed so each one was at a definite exchange rate?

I can't keep from repeating --- what you have to do depends upon the 
reporting rules for the several jurisdictions involved.

Michael

-- 
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.