[GNC] Switching to trading accounts in existing database

[Christopher Lam]

Multicurrency is a major minefield.
Start from https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.html
and finish with
https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/gnucash.html for the
background on trading accounts.
>From discussion with accountant, it would seem that the safest approach is
to have 1 book per home currency. When you move countries you'd be better
off with a new book with a new home currency. Taking temporary trips abroad
gets the currencies translated to home currency. AFAIU. IANAA YMMV.
https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/14/internet-must-be-true/

On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 00:59, Lukas Haase <lukashaase at gmx.at> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> On 2021-01-21 02:24, Mike Alexander wrote:
> > On 19 Jan 2021, at 20:08, Lukas Haase wrote:
> >
> >> So I got recommended using trading accounts. But suddenly all my
> >> previous multi-currency transactions get a small grey box with a cross
> >> (hinting the transaction is inconsistent).
> >>
> >> How do I best deal with this?
> >> Is it possible to keep my old multi currency transactions as-is and
> >> use trading accounts only for securities/stocks?
> >>
> >> If not, how do I migrate while ensuring my ten years worth of data
> >> does not suddenly get inconsistent?
> >
> > You should be able to use the "Check & Repair" commands in the Actions
> > menu to add the trading account splits to existing transactions.  I
> > would certainly save a copy of my data before doing this, and try it on
> > a few transactions first.  Your situation is complex enough that it is
> > not unlikely that this won't do exactly what you want, but it's worth a
> > try assuming you have good backup.
>
> Thank you, I think that worked indeed.
>
> I still need to cross-check everything (at the first glance things look
> OK).
>
> So then I'd have a general question on the multi currency feature:
>
> 1.) Are "Trading Accounts" just an *alternative* way to handle multi
> currencies (and as such have nothing to do with "trading")?
>
> 2.) Trading Account seem to be way more powerful than storing the
> exchange rate in each transaction
>
> 3.) Why exactly aren't they enabled by default if they are so superior?
> Why let people my default use the way that makes things less consistent
> and error-prone?
>
> Thanks,
> Lukas
>
>
>
>
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