Multiple Currencies

[Mike Alexander]

--On November 28, 2010 9:43:30 AM +0900 David Somers Harris 
<david at somers-harris.com> wrote:

> What is the recommended way for keeping track of finances in multiple
> currencies?
>
> I have assets, liabilities and expenses etc. in two countries, and
> came up with a hierarchy like this:
>
> Assets
> - Canada
> - - Current Assets
> - - Etc.
> - Japan
> - - Current Assets
> - - Etc.
> Expenses
> - Canada
> - - Clothing
> - - Etc.
> - Japan
> - - Clothing
> - -Etc.
> Etc.
>
> The problem is though that when I want to run reports (e.g. expense
> report) it shows everything, but I'm only interested in one country
> at a time. Is there a better way of doing this, perhaps from an
> account hierarchy perspective or a reports setting perspective?

I don't know that it matters too much whether you organize the 
hierarchy with categories under currencies like this or currencies 
under categories.  I happen to do the latter which seems to make it 
easier to see all expenditures in a given category regardless of 
currency, but I think either way can be made to work.  Others who know 
more about accounting might add something to this.

However, before you get too far into multiple currency stuff you might 
want to take a look at 
<http://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.htm> and 
<http://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/gnucash.html>.  These 
pages talk about some issues related to multiple currency accounting 
and version 2.4 will implement some of these ideas.

       Mike