Currencies / the accounting equation.

[Dave Peticolas]

 writes:
> More thoughts about the currency stuff.  I think there are at least
> two issues here which keep getting conflated, but it's hard to keep
> them apart.  Sorry about the rambly length.  I'd appreciate any
> thoughts.

...

> Removing the Account's currency pointer.
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> We would have to have historical and current prices for every stock
> and currency you have accounts in, as a direct quote from the
> functional currency; but the accounting equation problem is less
> nasty, and the main-window display becomes a little nicer; the
> "balance" of the account is the number of shares/widgets/etc, but the
> display shows a nice tabulation of functional-currency translations in
> the next column.  This also makes the Euro-patch display problem go
> away; if Euro is the functional currency, all account balances would
> get translated and displayed along side their "native" (FRF, GPB, etc)
> balance.
> 
> Problems remain. There are 3 ways to note a simple exchange
> transaction:

I think there is an additional issue for transactions. Consider
a transfer between two accounts with the same security (USD).

 	Acct		DR			CR
 	bank (USD)	                        USD 100 (? ?)
 	cash (USD)	USD 100 (? ?)

Under the current rules of balancing, you can choose any two distinct
currencies and any amounts for the two values, and the transaction is
in balance with respect to the common currency (USD). This is the case
now, but choosing the account also chooses the currency so there is no
ambiguity. Should we allow this?

dave