Foreign currency accounts and transactions.

[Adam Funk]

On 2006-09-12, Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> The Price Editor is used for present value..  Think about a foreign
> currency in the same way as you would think about a stock.  If you're
> holding onto a foreign currency you probably want to know how much
> that holding is worth in your home currency.  The Price Editor tells
> you that, then current value of the holding.

So the Price Editor is used to generate the GBP (in my case) value
that appears in reports for non-main-currency accounts
(e.g. Assets:Cash:Euros or Assets:Investments:YoyodyneShares).


> The EER, however, is used to compute the actual basis (purchase
> price) and gain/loss (sale price) of that foreign currency.

And the EER is used to set the GBP value in a GBP account
(e.g. Expenses:Books) of a transaction initiated in a non-GBP account
(Assets:Cash:Euros).


> The one place where the EER and Price Editor is tied together
> is that the EER will save the current price into the PriceDB,
> and it will use the most recent price from the PriceDB as the
> "default" entry.  But it's still the actual EER price that matters
> for your basis/gain.

So I need to enter rates directly into the Price Editor only when the
value of the currency or share has changed significantly (in my
opinion) since the last transaction and I want those assets and
liabilities to be revalued --- right?


> I hope this clears up your confusion.

Yes, I think so!  Thanks again.