Multi currency discussion cont'd

[Derek Atkins]

Hi.  I'm finally back from vacation so I can take a look at this.

First question: what version of Gnucash are you using?  Everything I
am about to talk about is in current CVS (and some are in later 1.7
series releases)....

Jan Nielsen <nielsenjan@tin.it> writes:

> Disclaimer: I have accounts (as in bank, expense, income) in three
> different currencies, none of which are US dollars (which might be
> important for a couple of observations that I'll make). My typical use
> of these account relates to infrequent transfers between bank accounts
> of different currencies and expenses and income payed out from/into
> account of the same currency).

No, it shouldn't matter that you're not using USD...

> 1) When specifying a transfer between two differently "currencied"
> accounts using the "To amount" mechanism I expected that it would be
> possible to go back and adjust one of the the sides independently of
> the other. An example would be that I make a transfer of 10 Euro from
> a euro account to a DKK account. In transfer dialog I specify 10 EUR
> going out and in the "To Amount" field I specify 75 DKK (which most
> often will be based on a guess, albeit a qualified one) coming
> in. When my account statement show up later for the danish account, it

Question: is DKK a Euroland currency?  Based on your usage here I
would presume not.  Sorry, I don't know which currencies are euroland
and which are not....

> shows that actually my account has been credited with 70 DKK (they did
> not offer the normal interbank  rate, they stole some money, the
> transaction cost money, I had bad information, whatever). Now, I need
> to adjust the DKK account to reflect this, and simply change the 75 to
> 70. However, gnucash at this point also changes the amount that I have
> taken out of the EUR account to say 9 EUR instead of 10. But in my
> opinion this is wrong. If I understand correctly the transaction has
> been remembered by a calculated exchange rate instead of by the actual
> amounts.  So one way of looking at this could be that transfers made
> with "To amount" should be tagged as such and not recalculated when
> amounts change on either side of the transfer.

No, that's not how it works.  When you create a transaction it
determines the transaction currency (based on your default currency or
the currency of the account), and then for each split it stores the
split's amount (which is denoted in the split's account's
commodity/currency) and the split's value (which is denoted in the
transaction currency).  The exchange rate is the ratio between the
amount and the value.

When you view an account, all amounts are shown in that account's
currency.  So, when you open your EUR account, all amounts are
converted to EUR.  When you view your DKK account, all amounts are
converted to DKK.  When you edit the amounts, it re-converts back as
if all splits are in that currency; the amount-to-value ratio remains
the same through all edits.

What you want to do is "Edit Exchange Rate".  Select the transaction
you need to change and then click on Actions -> Edit Exchange Rate.
Then change the exchange rate to what you need it to be.  This will do
what you want to do -- change the ratio between the "amount" and the
"value".

> The only alternative method I can see to get my transaction right is
> that I completely delete it when the statement arrives and then
> reinsert it with the correct numbers (which is what I do for now).

You could do that, but you don't need to.  Just use the Edit Exchange
Rate function to change it in-place.

> 2) When making a transfer between two differently currencied accounts
> from the ledger gnucash apparently automatically finds some old
> exchange rate (probably from the pricedb, even though the price editor
> it empty (but then I might have misunderstood the use of the price
> editor)). IMHO it should at least be possible to configure a
> preference that a) automatically brings up the transfer dialog
> identical to the toolbar transfer button when making a transfer
> between two accounts with different currencies or b) do as it does now
> (even though I'm not really sure how it works, but it does not matter
> too much for me as I probably would use the other method anyway).

I don't think I understand what you mean here.  When you are in the
ledger and enter a txn between accounts of different currencies, it
should pop up the exchange-rate editor (which looks a lot like the
transfer dialog) for you to edit the exchange rate.

Note that it is possible that what is confusing you is the register's
quickfill system.  If that is what is happening, then yes, it will
automatically re-use the previous exchange rate (filled in from the
previous transaction) and you will have to manually change it.

This may be considered a bug, but then again it may not.  If you are
using the auto-completion to duplicate a transaction why should
gnucash assume the exchange rate is different?

> 3) Reports:

[snip -- I'll leave this for another person/day]

> I have not been able to test the business reports !!!!

Any particular reason?  Or just lack of time?

> Thanx
> 
> Jan

-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
       warlord@MIT.EDU                        PGP key available