Multi-currency problems 2 of 2 (splits)

[Derek Atkins]

TC <tc at emailetc.co.uk> writes:

>> As for accounting for the service charge -- the way to handle that is
>> to recompute the exchange rate (which is effectively what's going on).
>
> That's *not* effectively what's going on.  The service charge is an
> expense item, not a component in the exchange rate.  Doing it your way
> may keep the transfer correct, but a P&L statement would be
> incorrect. The amount spent on "Expenses:Bank Charges" (or whatever
> expense item was used) would be too small.

Ahh.. I see.  You actually want to account for the charge instead of
just hiding it in the exchange rate.  I suppose you could do that, too,
but then you might hit bug #144885.

The best way to do what you want is to work from the originating bank
account and create the transaction to the foreign currency.  Then once
that transaction is finished go back to it, go into split mode, change
the amount, and add the expense split.

> Of course, the bank is the real culprit here.  I don't understand why
> they represent my transaction as a split when there are really two
> entirely different transactions going on; one the transfer to dollars,
> and the other their transfer charge.  I have another bank that does it
> that way (showing the two transactions separately).

No, it really is one transaction.  You could record it as two if you
wanted to.

> Maybe I'll just tell the first guys that I'm closing my account "'cos
> you don't support the world famous GnuCash format!". :-)

uhh...

> tc

-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 at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available