Proposal for modifying gnucash to use exact quantities

[Buddha Buck]

At 09:29 AM 7/25/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Clark Jones <jones@inficad.com> writes:
> > I hate to quibble with Gribble :-), but in actuallity the bill establishing
> > the Dollar as the U.S. currency (written by Thomas Jefferson) defines the
> > "mill" -- which is 1/1000 of a U.S. Dollar -- though the only places where
> > you're likely to run into it is at the gas pump and calculating real estate
> > taxes.
>
>I'm a little confused about this.  Where is a "mill" actually a valid
>amount for a financial transaction?  You certainly can't take one out
>of a bank account.

The most common place that mills come up is in the prices of certain 
commodities and in property tax rates.  As Mr. Jones mentioned, consumer 
gas prices are specified in mills.

I have not read your latest proposal yet -- it's on a different computer -- 
so I don't know if covers the issue of recording and working with prices.

Although the mill is a defined denomination, the US Government has never 
minted or printed any currency in that denomination.  The closest that they 
have come is the half-cent piece, which technically was denominated in 
(fractional) cents, anyway.

>Is this just an anachronism?  Are there *any* places where correct
>record keeping requires one to keep track of dollar values down to the
>1/1000 of a dollar?

I assume that when half-cent pieces were available, standard banking and 
accounting practice of the day would keep track of transactions to the 
nearest 1/200 of a dollar, if not to the mill (for convenience sake).

Now, the only place where dollar values are kept track of that precisely is 
in pricing and tax assessments.  I know that the local gas pumps do 
accurately treat the $1.699/gallon price as $1.699/gallon -- when I buy 
10.000 gallons, I pay $16.99, not $17.00.  The pump evidentially knows 
about mills.

But pricing is weird anyway.  Jon Trowbridge (sp?) has already pointed out 
that some markets report prices in units of 1/8 cent/bushel.


>b.g.