[GNC] CPAs: Your opinion about Equity account in other currencies than the domestic

[Frank H. Ellenberger]

Hi all,

IIRC having equity account in something else than the domestic (book)
currency is discouraged. Can some experts (CPA etc.) explain the details?

I see currently only a pragmatical use case: While I create my inventory
I record only the number of shares as a reminder and later, after
finding the recipe or another reliable prize source, replace the record
by one containing the real prize.


For the records: David opended
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798163 - Equity Accounts
Creation for different commodities
about this issue.
The motivation for the original change can be read in
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797836 - Add support for
specifying an opening balance account

Regards
Frank

Am 09.04.21 um 17:23 schrieb D.:
> Frank, 
> 
> Thank you for an explanation. I have tested your advice and found it wanting. 
> 
> Here are my observations after a morning of tests:
> 
> * The new code creates a new equity account whenever the new account has a different currency/commodity than the base currency of the book regardless of the underlying type of the account. Because Stocks and Mutual Funds have a different currency/commodity from the base currency, these are the first times I have seen this.
> 
> * The Opening Balance setting on the Equity:Opening Balances account has **no effect** on the behavior of this code. New Opening Balances accounts are created under exactly the same circumstances as when this setting is left unchecked.  
> 
> * The new code automatically creates the Opening Balances - XXX account every time an account with a different currency is touched. This includes deleting an account--so, for example, when I created a dummy account that triggered the new equity account creation, deleted the Equity account, and then the dummy account, the new code re-created the equity account before deleting the account for which the equity account was required in the first place. This is truly an ugly corner of this code.
> 
> I believe the patch needs to be reconsidered more fundamentally to only be invoked on a new file. I don't want the program deciding that I need an equity account for every new asset I add to the account structure. I can't understand why an opening balance equity account is needed for an asset in which I identify the source of the opening balance. 
> 
> There is another problem with the logic in this change, though. In my case, the program created a new equity account-- and then didn't assign any splits to it. That suggests strongly that it shouldn't have created the account in the first place. 
> 
> Finally, to do all this without even a dialog alerting the user of this action is extremely disturbing. I personally don't look at the Equity portion of my account tree very often; I only happened to notice it in a combo box. 
> 
> I repeat my recommendation that this change be limited to new or empty files only. Either that, or the change should be reverted until a better solution is found. As it stands, there is no way I can prevent this stupidity from happening EVERY TIME I ADD A NEW STOCK ACCOUNT. 
> 
> Yikes. 
> 
> David