Invoices in CAD currency are 0, Invoices in USD are OK

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Hi, folks:

I've been watching gnucash for many years, but I just now decided to 
try it out. Thanks to everyone who made the great software and 
documentation and list archives from which I benefit.

I'm having a problem that in a 2-currency file, invoices in one 
currency work fine, but invoices in the other currency have 
transaction values of zero.
- Q1: can anyone help me diagnose and solve the problem below?
- Q2: can anyone point me to useful documentation pages to help me explore?
- Q3: is anyone using Gnucash successfully on one business with invoices in
   multiple currencies (I imagine many Europeans must be)?
- Q4: is Gnucash intended to handle a file with multiple currencies among
   invoices, accounts, and transactions in its stride? (I believe Yes.)

Details:

I want to use Gnucash for a small Canadian business that works in two 
currencies: CAD (Candian dollars) and USD (USA dollars). I've entered 
some invoices in each currency so far, but the business also has bank 
accounts, credit cards, and payments in both curencies.  (Some of my 
Canadian bank accounts even have USD sub-accounts in them!)

I renamed the existing Accounts Receivable account to be "Accounts 
Receivable (USD)", and made sure that its "Security/Currency" is set 
to "USD (US Dollar)". I created a second Accounts Receivable account 
named "Accounts Receivable (CAD)", and set its "Security/Currency" is 
set to "CAD (Canadian Dollar)". But have the "Assets" account as 
their parent.

When I entered invoices which were denominated in USD, and posted 
them, I saw totals accrue in the "Accounts Receivable (USD)" account, 
and the corresponding "Income:Sales (USD)" and "Reimbursed Expenses 
(USD)" accounts as expected.

But when I entered invoices which were denominated in CAD, and posted 
them, the transactions under "Accounts Receivable (CAD)" account, and 
the corresponding "Income:Sales (CAD)" and "Reimbursed Expenses 
(CAD)" accounts, all had their Invoice and Payment fields set to zero.

One difference is that the CAD invoices all charge a GST tax. 
However, even if I remove the tax and re-post the invoice, the 
transaction values still come to zero.

Changing the Preferences... Accounts... Default Currency from 
"Locale: USD (US Dollar" to "CAD (Canadian Dollar)" changed how the 
Present column is displayed in the Accounts window, but didn't change 
the CAD invoices having amounts set to zero.

I tried searching the list archives and the wiki for guidance, and 
didn't find anything useful.  There may be something there, but 
searching for "invoice" gives me too many hits, and I don't know what 
the right search terms would be to find whatever content is there.

I'm on Mac OS X 10.5.7, running gnucash 2.2.8 r17773 built 2009-02-06.

Thanks for your help!
Please respond to the list, or directly to me at from.gnucash at jdlh.com .
-- 
     --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh at jdlh.com     http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
       multilingual websites consultant

       157-2906 West Broadway, Vancouver BC V6K 2G8, Canada
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