Foreign Currency & Month End Amounts

[kjordan]

Hi,

   I'm using GnuCash 1.4.1 for my personal finances (such as they are,
ahem) and I have a few questions.

   I have bank accounts (and credit cards) in more than one country;
let's say in Canada and the US.  I often make purchases in the US
using my Canadian credit cards.  So it seems to me the reasonable
thing to do is to just set up two `Bank Account' accounts, one in USD
and one in CAD, and tell GnuCash what the exchange rate is.  Then,
when I make a purchase in the US in USD using my Canadian card, the
proper amount in the proper currency should be deducted from the
proper account, and everything should magically work itself out,
Right?  The problem is that I can't seem to figure out how to enter an
exchange rate.  

   So what I'm doing now is sorta faking it.  My Canadian account is
listed as being in USD (so, it's like the exchange rate is 1.00).
Then, when I make a US purchase with my Canadian card, I do a
double-entry transaction against that credit-card account and the
appropriate expense account, and then I do an additional `dangling'
transaction (horrors!) on *just* the credit card account to take care
of the exchange rate.  This sorta works, but is pretty ugly, right?
Right.

   I've read a bit about the foreign currency trading accounts  and
I've seen boxes that allow me to enter an HTTP URL pointing to a site
with the exchange information, but my machine really isn't connected
to the net all that often, and what I really need is just have a
regular old bank account in several different currencies, with a fixed
exchange rate that I can set (and change) myself manually.

   Sooooo, my question is: Am I not seeing how to do this or is this
not possible (yet)?

   My other question concerns `accounting periods'.  (It's in quotes
because I don't know if that's a real term or not.  I know nothing of
accounting, if you really must know.)  Is there a way of resetting
everything at the end of, say, every month?  What I'd really like is
to see how much I've spent in each of my expense accounts at the end
of every month, and maybe even compare month to month expenses. Am I
also missing how to do this in the current version?

   Another thing I'd really like to do is set objectives on each of my
expense accounts at the beginning of the month and then see how close
I come to these objectives by month end (or, more likely, how
appallingly off I am).  But I read that the `budget' part of GnuCash
isn't implemented yet.  Is that right?  Is this something that's in
the works?

   Overall, I'm pretty happy with GnuCash.  (Bravo Guys!)  And I'll
very likely continue to use it.  (Woo Hoo!)  May you take this
software to the loftiest heights of wealth, fame, and power and
finally realize your true destiny to become supreme rulers of the
universe crushing all that stand before you with the MIGHTY HORNED
HEAD OF THE GNU!  MUUAAA HAA HAA HAA!  (Umm, that *is* the ultimate
destiny of GPL-dom, isn't it?)

   Okay, I'm done now.

Cheers,

Jordan