Single Foreign Currency Account Payable

[John Whitmore]

On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 03:27:04PM +0100, Maf. King wrote:
> On Sat 24 October 15 14:30:44 John Whitmore wrote:
> > Starting out on the Business side of things and on the wrong end of the
> > learning curve so there may be one or two stupid questions.
> > 
> > I'm operating in Euroland so all my accounts are in Euro. I've added a
> > vendor of amazon.co.uk and purchased a couple of items. They operate in GBP
> > Sterling so issue me an itemised bill in GBP but list the total payment in
> > Euros because I've paid with a Euro Debit Card.
> > 
> > Now I've added amazon as a GBP vender and created a Bill in which I enter
> > the various items in the sterling amounts and the 20% VAT
> > 
> > that's all good but the bill won't allow me to check the "Invoiced ?" field.
> > I assume because it don't like the currency.
> > 
> > I tried to post the bill but that won't happen either again I assume because
> > of the curreny issues.
> > 
> > I have read the Foreign Currency section but the examples there deal with
> > people who have actual Bank Accounts in US Dollars and Hong Kong whatevers.
> > I don't have multiple currency accounts I only have one, Euros.
> > 
> > Given all that I assume then that what I should do is change amazon to a
> > Euro account and convert all the currencies manually. I know it's not
> > difficult I've been given a total in GBP and in Euro so I should be able to
> > work back from that ;-)
> > 
> > My question is: Is there a simpler way? I guess I hoped that I could tell
> > GnuCash the total in Euro and that it would automatically convert the
> > individual items and VAT to the necessary Euro amounts before updating the
> > Expense Accounts and Liability accounts.
> > 
> 
> Hi John.
> 
> Since you don't hold any GBP accounts, do you really need to track the GBP 
> value of the purchases?  If you've paid in euro and they show the euro total 
> on their bill, it seems to me that the GBP - EUR conversion rate is fixed, and 
> pretty much irrelvant, unlike where you hold a foreign currency account where 
> daily rate changes affect the value of your holding (in respect of your "base" 
> currency)
> 
> What I'm trying to say is, is it worth tracking in GBP?
> 
> 0.02
> Maf.
> 

Cheers Maf, like I say wrong end of the learning curve in both accounting and
GnuCash. I guess there is no real need to keep track of the GBP at all and
just use the Euro total given. 

thanks a million for your help

John