Accounts in multiple currencies

[Doug Laidlaw]

There was no reply to this, and I suppose that it partly didn't ask for one.

It seems to me that it isn't really a GnuCash question.  If you still have 
income and expenses in GBP, most will now be in AUD. All that I can suggest 
is that now you have moved to Australia, start accounting in AUD.   It will 
be easier in the long run.  If your time here is limited, that is 
different.of course.

Pick a convenient date, and convert everything at the exchange rate for that 
day, including your budgets.  It will no doubt be time-consuming, but you 
will need to do it only once.  If you have a transaction in GBP, use the 
exchange rate for that time, just as my credit card does.

There may be no continuity in your budgets for the current year.  That is 
inevitable.  When Australia adopted metrics, they asked that the two mile 
course of the Melbourne Cup be exempted, to make all the old records still 
relevant.  That was refused.  The Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance was set up 
so that at 11 a.m on 11/11, the sun will light up the word "Peace."  They 
didn't expect daylight saving to gum this up.  The R.S.L. wanted the clocks 
put back to standard time just for that one day!  Eventually, they put in 
some fix "all done with mirrors."

We have to move with our circumstances.

Doug.
On Tuesday 21 October 2008 15:10:28 Nathan.Watson-Haigh at csiro.au wrote:
> I started using GNUCash in England, and as such had most accounts set up in
> GNUCash in GBP currency. However, I've recently move to Australia and have
> some accounts set up using AUD currency. I was wondering if anyone has
> experience dealing with accounts in multiple currencies and if they have
> any advice on how best to handle them.
>
> In particular, most of my expense accounts are in GBP, but now that I'm in
> Australia, and have a bank account in AUD, whenever I make charges to my
> AUD bank account, I enter the details in GNUCash as an expense (expense
> account in GBP). This expense has an "exchange rate" associated with it.
> However, an exchange rate doesn't really mean anything unless you really
> are moving money between two currencies. Therefore, if I use the Price
> Editor to retrieve up-to-date quotes on currency exchange rates my normal
> fortnightly salary in Australia looks like it's decreasing in reports due
> to the recent increase in the GBP->AUD exchange rate. Is there a better way
> to deal with multiple currencies, other than maybe creating a sub account
> in AUD for each expense account?
>
> In addition, this is further complicated in the budget facility as it
> doesn't allow the budget to be specified in a particular currency, but
> rather is fixed to the currency of specified by each account. Thus,
> fluctuations in the exchange rate have an implied impact on whether I'm
> under/over budget.
>
> I suppose, my point is that expenses are all relative to my current earning
> which is in AUD at the moment and exchange rates are not important in this
> respect
>
> Cheers, and thanks for any comments/info/thoughts/points of view you may be
> able to provide. Nathan
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Nathan S. Watson-Haigh
> OCE Post Doctoral Fellow
> CSIRO Livestock Industries
> J M Rendel Laboratory
> Rockhampton
> QLD 4701
> Australia
>
> Tel: +61 (0)7 4923 8121
> Fax: +61 (0)7 4923 8222
> Web: http://www.csiro.au/people/Nathan.Watson-Haigh.html
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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