Problem creating a "Currency" account.

Daniel Carrera daniel.carrera at zmsl.com
Fri Jun 27 11:40:05 EDT 2008


Hello,

I just bought some stock (FXI) and I want to record it in GnuCash in the 
way described here:

http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/gnucash.html

That is, I want to setup an account called Currency::FXI and record my 
purchase with two transactions:

1. X Euros from Assets:Bank:MyBank to Currency:EUR
2. Y Shares from Currency:FXI to Assets:Stocks:FXI


But GnuCash doesn't let me create Currency:FXI (stock account) the way 
the tutorial says.

The tutorial says that Currency:* should all be set to income accounts. 
But GnuCash insists that income accounts can only have values 
denominated in currencies like Euros and Dollars. It doesn't let you 
have an income account denominated in stock or some commodity.

What do I do?


If I try to set the account as Asset/Stock I get two problems:

1. GnuCash won't let me put it under the top-level "Currency" account. 
"Currency" is set to income, and therefore GnuCash only allows 
"Currency:FXI" to be income or expense.

2. Even if GnuCash did allow me to make Currency:FXI an asset account, 
it would wreck the report system. When I ask GnuCash how much I have in 
assets or what my net worth is, the two accounts Assets:Stocks:FXI and 
Currency:FXI would cancel and GnuCash would think I have nothing.

What can I do? How can I record my stock purchase as in the tutorial?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Daniel.


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