Multiple currencies in broker statements

[Brendan Simon]

Also, I notice that the opening balance on my montly statement does not 
match the closing balance of the previous statement.  I presume this is 
an exchange rate variation.

* How do I account for this in GnuCash?
I've just set up a exhange rate balancing account and transfer money on 
the 1st of each month to make it match the statement.
* Is this correct?  Or may be I should just be ignoring the opening 
balance all together???

* Is it fundamentally correct to try to match all the statement entries 
into GnuCash, or am I being over complicating things?

Thanks, Brendan.


Brendan Simon wrote:
> I have a broker account (futures & options) and have traded index 
> options on the German DAX, E-Mini S&P, FTSE, and Australian S&P.  My 
> monthly statements have cash balances and securitiy valuations in the 
> various currencies (Euro, USD, GBP, AUD).  My monthly statement also 
> has a column/filed called "Base Currency" which is used to consolidate 
> the values into my desired currency (AUD in my case).  Each statement 
> has an exchange rate specified for each currency, presumably either 
> averaged out over the month or the exchange rate on the last day of 
> the month.
>
> * Each month I want to enter the info on my statement into GNU Cash.  
> (I "potentially" want to be able to do it daily with my emailed daily 
> statements too).
>
> Ideally I would like my GNU cash to match the base currency fields on 
> my statement, but I can't see how this can be done, especially if I 
> use the automatic currency updates as they will probably be different 
> values to the broker statements.  Also if I have many different 
> brokers they will probably use different rates.
>
> * Would it better to use the base currency values and enter them using 
> my default currency rather than have multiple currency accounts?
> That's what I was doing to record transactions, but I don't think it 
> stacks up because the profit or losses of the trading tend to remain 
> in foreign currency accounts rather than get automatically transferred 
> to/from my base currency.  It seems more accurate to me to keep track 
> of things the way they are.  ie. if the broker keeps US accounts, then 
> my GnuCash entries should be similar.  Right?
>
> * Is it possible to set different currency rates for each broker?
> eg. EUR-AUD (broker1) = x
> eg. EUR-AUD (broker2) = y
> eg. EUR-AUD (broker3) = y
>
> I've read the online docs and I understand how to have a base currency 
> account as a parent account and mulitple currency accounts as 
> sub-accounts.  The cash component is easy but the options securities 
> is a little trickier (at least for me).
>
> * Is there any documentation or tips on accounting for options.  
> Options on stocks, options on futures, options on indices, etc ???
> * Are they just the same as stocks???
>
> Thanks,
> Brendan.
>
>