New trading accounts for currencies - help in setting up

[Gez]

Thank you - that set me off on the right path.  It still took a while for me
to get the hang of what was going on though.

I've always tried to keep a good record of the original payment amounts when
spending in a foreign currency.  It's important for me to be able to split
off conversion fees and bank charges correctly, as well be being able to
match a receipt to a transaction.  For this reason up to now I've had a long
list of expense categories (accounts) in all the different currencies in
which they occur. I tried putting the original values in memo fields instead
and only using one currency, but it just didn't work for me.

I hadn't realised until just now, when I got the trading account working and
replicated the examples on the tutorial page, that I can get rid of those
extra accounts and can have a simple list of accounts in my main currency.
I am delighted about that.  If I need to check a transaction against a
receipt, or correct a bank charge a few weeks after making an entry of a
foreign card purchase, I can see the original transactions clearly.  The
trading accounts in effect hold that extra information about the transfer,
getting rid of any ambiguity or vagueness.

Unfortunately, it looks like Ctrl-F ("find transaction") won't return any
values that are only in the trading accounts, so I can't search for
transactions by their value in the original currency.  Is that deliberate or
an oversight?  I'm not too concerned - it shouldn't be hard to find
transactions by searching by date when I need to.

I still have to play with whether you can "correct" a rate later from the
price editor, or whether you have to do it from the transaction.  Also, is
there a way of importing exchange rate data into the price editor?  Or some
kind of quick lookup while entering transactions?   I'm not looking forward
to having to manually look up and enter a rate each time I record a cash
transaction.  If I don't bother doing that, will it just assume the last
known rate (such as those entered in a card transaction or cash exchange)?
If I'm not concerned with tracking the losses and gains wouldn't that do?

Gez


On 25 March 2011 18:48, Ian K <ik522000 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> You don't need to set the trading accounts up yourself -they are created
> automatically as required. When you create a trading-type transaction then
> if the relevant trading accounts don't exist they are created.
> I was similarly unsure but with some trial and error I got there.
>
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