Newbie Currency Questions

[Shayne Lennox]

Hi,

I'm a new Linux user who is in the process of switching from Quicken 2002 
to GnuCash (1.6.5 which came with Mandrake 8.2). I have a few questions:

1) I am in Australia and my main currency is, of course, AUD. I also have a 
PayPal account which is in USD, and I'm confused about how withdrawals from 
my PayPal account to my AUD bank account will work. In Quicken, it simply 
involved a direct transfer from one account to the other, entering an 
exchange rate when prompted. In GnuCash, it seems I need at least one 
"intermediate" account. Unfortunately, the example in the manual (involving 
Francs) wasn't much help to me. Could someone explain to me what 
intermediate account(s) need to be created and what transactions I need to 
enter in order to move money from my PayPal account to my bank account?

2) Every so often, I receive cheques in US dollars, which I deposit into my 
AUD bank account. Since Quicken didn't care where the cheques came from, 
I'd simply enter the converted AUD amount when I deposited the cheque. In 
GnuCash, is it necessary (or beneficial) to specify the Income accounts for 
these in USD, or can I simply use my AUD Income accounts?

3) Finally, a display issue. In my accounts list, the balance for all my 
accounts is preceded by an "AUD", except my USD PayPal account which just 
has a dollar sign. The program seems to think I'm working in USD by 
default, even though I have the Default Currency set to AUD in the 
settings. Anyone know how I might fix this?

Thanks,

Shayne Lennox
xonnels@netspace.net.au

PGP/GPG Key: http://www.netspace.net.au/~xonnels/pgp.html