Multiple currencies for Credit cards

[Mike]

--- Tom Haskins-Vaughan <tom at meandmini.com> wrote:

> I have credit cards in GBP and USD. Do I need two separate expense 
> accounts as follows:
> 
> Expenses:Banking charges:Credit Card Interest USD
> Expenses:Banking charges:Credit Card Interest GBP
> 
> Or would one do?
> 
> I'm thinking that if I only had one, then the exchange rate would come 
> into play for each monthly fee.
> 
> Liabilites:US Credit Card -> Expenses:Banking charges:Credit Card Interest
> 
> Whereas if I had two separate expense accounts then the exchange rate 
> would only be important when I was compiling reports, e.g. a balance sheet.
> 

I've found it best to split multi-currencies near the top of your account tree
for assets & liabilities:

Assets:GBP:all GBP asset accounts
Assets:USD:all USD assets accounts

And for expenses I've only split the 'lesser used' currency into it's own tree
(main reason is that it's a hassle typing in expenses:GBP:blahdiblah for my
main currency). 
So I have:
Expenses:Bank/Insurance/Entertainment/whatever
Expenses:USD:<USD subtree>

I enter the actual values as per my bank statement instead of an exchange rate.

Cheers
Mike