[GNC] Why does an Equity account have to be of Currency type?

Michael or Penny Novack stepbystepfarm at comcast.net
Mon Apr 25 13:17:08 EDT 2022


>
> But question is more general.  Let's say I join Robinson Crusoe on a
> remote island and we decide our economy will be denominated in silver
> coins (of which I had 12 in my pocket when I washed ashore on his
> island).  If I were to do my accounting in GnuCash I would need to start
> with an Opening Balance of 12 coins (my first transaction would need to
> be Assets:Coins 12, Equity:Opening Balance 12), Gnucash does not let me
> do this.  The software will only allow the Equity accounts to be of ISO
> currency type.  Why not let the user denominate an Equity account in any
> asset they like - silver coins if that is what they want? 


It DOES allow this if you refuse to accept the magical meaning of "$" 
(or any other symbol).

Declare a law on the island, "$ is the symbol for a silver coin".  The 
fact that other people in other lands understand $ to stand for USD is 
irrelevant to island life. You are acting as if it made a difference in 
algebra whether you used "X"or "Y" to stand for an unknown variable.

But you are actually wanting something else. You are wanting in one set 
of books more than one type of currency  at the same time. That gnucash 
does not support, but that is more a limitation of accounting than of 
gnucash. You CAN be accounting for more than one sort of :currency" at 
the same time, but if not exchangeable, not in the same set of books << 
guncash will let you have any number of books >>

Michael D Novack





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