Purchasing an item in euros

[Colin Law]

On 14 January 2014 17:38, picosam <picosam at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a credit card that I used today to purchase an item in euros instead
> of US dollars. The credit card uses its own exchange rate, and charges me a
> fixed fee for the transaction since it's in foreign currency.
>
> How do I record this purchase?

This happens to me occasionally, when I am abroad on holiday for
example.  As I have no need to record the details I just record it
approximately in my own currency, guessing at the total cost, and
putting the foreign currency price in the notes.  Then when the credit
card statement comes in I correct the total.  If, however, you need to
record it in gory detail then you will need an expense account for the
transaction charge and will have to get into the multi-currency stuff
in GnuCash to cope with the exchange rate.  Don't do that unless you
really need to.


Colin