[GNC] Account Currency Screwed Up Again!

John Ralls jralls at ceridwen.us
Tue Feb 11 14:20:37 EST 2020


The transaction currency in which the value field of every split is denominated is determined by the account in whose register one creates the transaction. If that account is in a non-currency commodity then the currency of first parent account denominated in a currency is used. So in rsbrux's case where he had a stock XYZ under a CHF parent and bought using AUD, the stock split will have an amount in XYZ and a value in CHF and the cash split will have an amount in AUD and a value in CHF. That's a three-way transaction with two prices: XYZ->CHF and AUD->CHF. Both should be recorded in the price database. If he used basic view or was careless about entering the price and values the AUD->CHF price might be 1 and the XYZ->CHF price might have the value of XYZ's price in AUD.

Had he instead had the parent of the XYZ account in AUD as he should have or if had created the transaction starting in the cash account then the transaction currency would be AUD and only the stock split would have a price.

Regards,
John Ralls

> On Feb 11, 2020, at 9:42 AM, Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:
> 
> My understanding is that the controlling factor is the currency of the parent, not where you enter the transaction. But I could be mistaken.
> 
> The tree organization is really user dependent.
> 
> I think the Guide uses a slightly different organization where bank/brokerage lies below <investment type> with a separate <bank-xxx> per currency, that would eliminate one nesting level, but may not be to your liking or use case. So the result would be:
> 
> Assets - <current assets if you also track fixed> - Investments - <investment type> - <bank-currency> - <security>
> 
> You could also do the following:
> 
> Assets - <current assets if you also track fixed> - Investments - <bank> - <investment type-currency> - <security>
> 
> But neither may feel or look as clean as using a currency level by itself.
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 11, 2020 w7d42, at 3:52 AM, rsbrux via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
>> 
>> It was probabably due to my placing the securities accounts under accounts in CHF and entering the first transactions in the securities accounts instead of in the associated accounts for purchase & sale (see my reply to John Rails).  Stock quotes retrieved from Yahoo as json do show the correct currency, but my AUD investments have been in bonds and ETFs, for which I haven't found any online quote sources,  The price editor does in fact have a currency settting, however, it doesn't have any effect on prices which were taken from transactions.  I can edit such a price and change the currency in the dialog, but when I click "Apply" and "Close", nothing is changed.  Going through the price database has uncovered several other cases where securities transactions were entered with incorrect currencies.  To prevent future occurences I have now inserted additonal account levels for currencies where they were previously missing, even though the resulting account structure is even unwieldie
> r than before:
>> 
>> Assets - Investments - <bank> - <investment type> - <currency> - <security>
>> 
>> where <investment type is one of bond, fund or stock.  Perhaps I should dispense with the <investment type> level.
>> 
>> I did find one price in CHF for a security under a GBP account, but it is possible that I had entered the purchase transaction before introducing the currency-specific subaccount structure.
>> 
>> Our tax authorities insist on reporting produced by the banks (which costs us extra), so the mistakes in my accounting are irrelevant for tax purposes.  We do have a well-versed Swiss tax accountant and don't have to worry about foreign taxes because they are reported in the bank data and generally deducted at the origin.
>> 
>> Unfortunately for us, dividends are taxed as income in Switzerland, unless they are paid out of corporate reserves as "return of capital".
>> 
> 
> 
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