help with foriegn currency

[Beth Leonard]

On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 12:18:21PM -0500, Rob Latham wrote:
> I've read the "multiple currencies" chapter
> http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v1.8/C/gnucash-guide/chapter10.html
> and saw this note, which sounds like what I want to do:
> 
> 	You could also setup just a single Starting Balance account
> 	and use a currency transfer to populate the "different
> 	currency" accounts. However, this is more advanced option,
> 	which is explain in a later section.

I think what it's talking about is section 10.5 where it shows
how to use the price editor to set up conversion rates between
currencies.
http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v1.8/C/gnucash-guide/currency_howtot1.html
Once you have the conversions set up, transfers between
accounts of different currencies brings up a dialog asking
about the conversion rate.

> I added an exchange entry in the price editor,  but when I make a
> transfer from my USD denominated account (dollars) into the GBP
> denominated account (pounds), the transaction shows up with a blank
> ammount in the pounds account.  
> 
> I bet i'm missing something.  Any hints?

It's not made entirely clear in the tutorial that you need
essentially "dummy" currency accounts to set up the price
editor to get the exchange rate correct, and that those
dummy accounts need to be of type currency -- that is, set
up two accounts:
Assets:Current Assets: Currencies:Pounds
Assets:Current Assets: Currencies:Dollars
There won't be any transactions in these accounts.  When
you highlight each of those two accounts from the accounts
window and click on the "Edit Account" button,

  *** make sure the Account Type is set to "Currency" ***

and the Price Quote Source checkbox for Get Online Quotes is
checked (you'll also need to have finance::quote installed
on your system, that's covered in section 8.5)

http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v1.8/C/gnucash-guide/invest_stockprice1.html#invest_stockprice_auto2

Now when you make a transaction from
Liabilities:Credit Card (denoted in USD)
to
Expenses:Books:Foreign Books (denoted in Pounds)

when you hit "enter" to save the transaction after entering
the price of the book in pounds, the "transfer Funds" dialog will appear
asking you what exchange rate you want to use to transfer
currency from Pounds to USD.  You can specify the exchange
rate (by default it fills in what you last got from
the price editor) or you can specify it as, "my credit card
company charged me $60 for a 7 pound book!" in the "to Amount"
field.

I'm guessing that your currency accounts aren't set to
account type currency, but if that isn't the problem
write again and I'll think some more.

I also think that if you are just going on vacation,
the easiest way is to do it as another writer suggested,
and charge the expense as the amount of USD out of
your wallet at the exchange booth, and credit that
account again if you sell foreign currency back when
you re-enter the country.   Likewise with using your
credit card overseas.  Don't worry about how much
the book cost in pounds (other than possibly in the
memo part of the transaction), note on your expenses
by how much the credit card company charged you in USD.

Have a great vacation!
--Beth 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+                             Beth Leonard                          +
+       O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave              +
+       O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?        +
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