[GNC] New Australian user questions

[Megan Tilley]

Hi everyone!

You all appear to have a good handle on GnuCash, but I am a brand newbie!!!

My environment is:
Local Currency: Australian Dollar (AUD)
Exchange Rates required for:
== USD
== GBP (UK)
== EUR
== SEK (Sweden)
- and are usually purchases that I pass through Paypal (no balance in
Paypal, at all) => buy with AUD and currency conversion made by Paypal into
seller's currency
All my investments are AUD

Computer info:
--- Windows 10 Home version x64-based PC 10.0.19045 Build 19045
--- apparently Strawberry Perl (5.40.0.1-64bit)
--- apparently GnuCash Version: 5.6 Build ID: 5.6+(2024-03-30)
--- and while "Finance::Quote: " appears in my "About GnuCash" help window,
I can not see the version

I downloaded the "gnucash-5.8.setup" installation executable from the
Windows component (https://www.gnucash.org/download.phtml).

As I was hoping to initiate the automatic updates for Banking balances,
stock prices and currency rates, I followed the instructions and ran the
AqBanking Setup, but nothing happened as I could not get the Help button to
operate in GC === terminology between the US and Australia is significantly
different so I could not figure out the corollaries between my
understanding of Australian banking terms and what appears in the AqBanking
window (Ids and Bank Codes, etc.)

I moved on to Finance::Quote (F::Q) and followed the instructions to set up
Quote Retrieval (
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/finance-quote.html) in the
"Procedure 11.3. On Windows" the instructions stated to "run the program
Install Online Price Retrieval for GnuCash" which I found in my
installation data under "C:\Program Files
(x86)\gnucash\bin\install-fq-mods.cmd".

Guidelines indicated a long installation process: 20-30 mins. The first run
took 45 mins and did not work at all as I interrupted it. The second run
took 55 mins and terminated with a 'success' message but when I ran the
module within GC I received a "finance::quote not installed properly"
message. Apparently I have to uninstall and reinstall the entire package...


Question 1: how do I uninstall all of this stuff?
Question 2: What else do I have to do?
Question 3: Can I not just reinstall over top of what I have already done?


I have used Quicken and Quicken Home & Business for over 25 years, so I am
very used to that data structure. I spend something and one account goes
down in value and I acquire an asset - a coat, for example.
I understand that GC is a double-entry bookkeeping program, each
transaction has an accompanying transaction in another account. However, I
am very unsure where in the account register the transaction should be put
to "buy" the coat = in Quicken it is a Debit (out of my pocket) in the
Debit column of the Banking account.


Question 4: Which perspective should I adopt when looking at a transaction?
I stand in my account and pay out using the Debit column, or I stand in the
Coat account and use the debit column (correspondingly, the bank account is
the credit column)?


Further to this last, as I said, I use Paypal as a pass through conversion
channel- my Aussie bank account is used to pay for an item in a US market
(NOT an investment/shares/stocks) - say, a 'Reference Book'. I know that I
have to have 3 entries in a transaction: origin (Aussie Bank account), into
Paypal as AUD, conversion by Paypal to USD, payment to US company for my
'Reference Book'. Referring to Question 4 :-


Question 5: which of the columns in the transaction should host my Aussie
bank? Debit column or Credit Column?
Question 6: which of the columns should reflect AUD into Paypal?
Question 7: which of the columns should reflect USD from Paypal to the Book
company?
Question 8: which of the columns should reflect the Book company receiving
my USD?
Question 9: should I bypass Paypal completely and just use my bank account
and the Book company?


Question 10: how often do I need to update my GC install? - am I notified
of a new release or do I just watch this channel?
Question 11: how often do I need to update Strawberry Perl? and where do I
find that?
Question 12: do I need to anything else regularly with respect to GC and
the 'subroutines' used within it (F::Q, etc.)?
Question 13: how is the update process managed? How do you do an update to
GC? Download and run a new version?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read all this...

Megan in Sydney, Australia