Removing user:xfer-dialog in Price Editor, safe ?

[AmigaPhil]

Derek Atkins wrote:

>> So (to be sure I understand it right), does that mean that GnuCash
>> will not try to check the debit/credit of a transaction when it
>> involves accounts with different currencies ?
>
> That's not at all what I said.  What I said is that the register doesn't
> read any data out of the PriceDB.  I.e., The register does not use the
> PriceDB.  This has nothing to do with the debit/credit of transactions.
>
>> I mean:
>> If I transfer money from a bank EU to another bank EU, GnuCash
>> automatically checks if the debited amount is equal to the credited
>> amount; and if not, it creates a "non-solded" account with the
>> difference.
>
> Correct.
>
>> Now, if I transfer money from a bank EU to a bank US, GnuCash prompts
>> for an exchange rate, but skip/ignore the debit/credit check ?
>
> Not quite..  But the problem is that there's no easy way to balance
> $100 with €75 "automatically".  See Peter Selinger's paper.
>
>> The entered exchange rate in the transaction then appear as
>> "user:xfer-dialog" in the Price Editor.  What will happen if I
>> remove it ?  Will the Chart of Account use the nearest in time PriceDB ?
>
> Yes.
>
>> If so, then I assume it is better as a rule to only keep ONE
>> exchange rate per day in PriceDB.  Right ?
>
> It doesn't really matter, IMHO.
>

I'm still a bit puzzled as to how to get rid of those 0,01 euro leaps
I have here and there in the balance (a total difference of 0,60 now).

I see 2 probable causes: exchange rates and rounded values.


Here is an example of how I registered a USD stock purchase:

  Bank A   -->  Bank B  -->  Stock  <--->  Commission (expense)
  (EUR)     |   (USD)        (USD)    |   (EUR)
            |                         |
      exchange rate             exchange rate
     user:xfer-dialog          user:xfer-dialog
     

(Bank B is a temporary bank account I created for currency conversion
 before buying stocks.)

The amount from Bank A is correct as well as the amount in Commission.
The commission amount registered in the stock account depends of the
exchange rate used for the conversion.  My guess was that the reports
and the Chart of Account might use different exchange rates for the
conversion AND/OR different rounded values in euros.

The workarounds I was thinking about:

1) Ensure the same exchange rate is use for a given transaction (here
   in 2 steps), by removing all but one quotes in PriceDB for that
   transaction date.

2) Add an extra decimal for registered ammounts in USD (can this be
   done on a per-account level ?)

I can edit the "Bank B" account to use a 1/1000 USD precision, but
then, the USD values in the Stock account remains with 2 decimals.
And yet, I'm not even sure it will affect the precision of the
currency conversion at all...


AmigaPhil