Adding Trading Accounts.

[Mike Alexander]

--On January 7, 2013 8:17:05 AM +1300 David Bergum <dib at red-sky.us> 
wrote:

> I have three years of business accounting, where I have a bank
> account, income and a few expenses in NZD and the remainder in USD.
> In prior years I have been fudging the NZD income to make the books
> balance.  Since NZD income is periodically transferred to a USD
> account at the current exchange rate, this fudging is actually making
> the currency conversion the correct average over the transfers over
> the year.
>
> Also, I have not closed book at the end of the year.
>
> Anyone hazard a guess as to what would happen if I were to enable
> trading accounts and then go back and close book for 2010, 11, 12?
> Would things become a terrible mess?  Would I gain anything by using
> trading accounts?
>
> I am making a copy and playing around just to see what kind of a mess
> I end up with, but I thought there must be some good experience out
> there that I can draw upon!
>
> It seems that I can just go back and close book for the prior years
> as it makes my trial balance easier to pass on to my tax accountant,
> but I still have to fudge my NZD income to make things balance!

Without knowing exactly how you've been fudging things, it's hard to 
know what trading accounts would do.  However one thing to keep in mind 
is that trading accounts and book closing are largely independent of 
each other (assuming you mean the Tools->Close Book menu item).  The 
Close Book code will never produce a multiple currency transaction so 
it doesn't interact with trading accounts much.

If you want to try using trading accounts (and working on a copy is a 
really good idea until you're happy with the result) then turn them on 
and use Actions->Check & Repair->Check & Repair All (available when the 
accounts list page is selected).  This should add trading account 
splits to all transactions that need them.  I did this some time ago 
and it mostly worked.  I had some transactions (I think mostly 
investment account purchases and sales) that needed clean up 
afterwards, but it more or less did what I wanted.

          Mike