[GNC] Multicurrency Splits and the resulting Transfer Funds dialog

[John Ralls]

> On Jun 25, 2025, at 01:06, homer99 homer <stphomer99 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am running GNUCash 5.11. I have read through many posts on this topic but still I hope for a better solution or acknowledgement that this could be a legitimate bug or very least an enhancement request.
> 
> Scenario:
> My base currency is CAD (Canadian), therefore the majority of my Expense accounts are in CAD. I travel regularly and incur expenses paid with foreign cash. To support this, I create foreign cash accounts, funded with ATM withdrawals from my CAD bank account (this transaction is also affected by the below issue). I then wish to add various entries to the foreign cash account that deduct foreign cash and increase my various CAD Expense accounts.
> 
> Starting from the foreign cash account open in both cases:
> 
> Case 1:
> Clicking the Transfer button presents the Transfer Funds dialog with all "Basic Information", "Transfer From" and "Transfer To" sections available for selection. Only the "Currency Transfer" section is disabled. Both "Transfer From" and "Transfer To" default to the current Foreign Cash account (the account register I have open). Clicking the "Show Income/Expense" checkbox under the "Transfer To" account list enables the selection of an Expense account (CAD) and thus enables the "Currency Transfer" section allowing either to enter an "Exchange Rate" or "To Amount" to complete the transaction. This makes perfect sense to me and the resulting transaction satisfies the situation at hand.
> 
> Case 2:
> Attempting to directly enter a transaction into the register with a split to an Expense Account (CAD) opens the Transfer dialog like above, but most every section is now prepopulated and disabled. The entire "Basic Information" section is disabled yet has the amount entered from the register before the Transfer dialog was presented (which, logically to me, is in the foreign currency, as that is what is known at the time of data entry and in the context of the foreign cash account). The "Transfer From" section is disabled yet shows Currency as CAD (likely due to the Expense account being CAD), the "Transfer To" section is disabled and for some reason shows the Currency as that of the Foreign account I started in, and the account lists for both have disappeared altogether. Only the Currency Transfer section is enabled, but, of course, it is in the wrong context as the above "Transfer From" and "Transfer To" currencies are reversed (in my opinion) evidenced by the Amount being in the Fo
> reign currency context.
> 
> I prefer to enter transactions using Case 2, as the data entry effort is quicker when taking advantage of the auto-lookup of accounts in the register and the Transfer dialog being prepopulated as a result. Yet Case 2, in GNUCash current form, is only possible if the amount entered for the CAD expense split is manually converted to the CAD currency at the time of entry. Cannot the Transfer dialog be enhanced to support Case 2, by having the Transfer From and To reversed and having the Amount be dynamic based upon whatever option is chosen in the Currency Transfer section?
> 
> Am I not understanding something?

Maybe. Each transaction has a transaction currency in which the transaction is balanced. When using the register that currency is the currency of the account the register is for (we’ll ignore non-currency accounts for this discussion), so if you create the transaction in the foreign cash register the foreign currency is the transaction currency and the exchange rate is for CAD->foreign.

That design doesn’t comply with the GAAP/IAS requirement that a book has a home currency and that all transactions should be expressed in the home currency. Another facet of that rule is that Equity accounts, including Income and Expense, must be in the home currency; if you need to do your accounting in multiple currencies, perhaps because you owe tax in more than one country, then you would have to keep a separate book for each one. I know of a couple of GnuCash users in that situation who wouldn’t be happy about a home-currency redesign; there are no doubt more whom I don’t know about.

Regards,
John Ralls