On 10/02/2019 19:46, Alex Aycinena wrote:
It is possible that Wm is noting a problem in gnucash that I'm trying to
address with my 'Book Currency' enhancement (unfortunately, a bit delayed).
I'm not antagonistic to your idea, Alex, just not sure I understand it.
For most users who deal in a home currency most of the time and
occasionally buy a foreign currency, say on a trip, and spend it on
expenses, this deficiency won't show itself.
Agree, we've a person in devel yelling about just that.
But for people who deal in
multiple currencies often, with complicated transactions, it may.
Consider the following scenario:
1. A user is based in Europe and considers their home currency to be Euros
following
2. The user uses Euros to buy multiple lots of GBPs at different times. The
transactions each have different implicit exchange rates in the individual
splits, but gnucash doesn't do any automatic lot tracking.
I think I have to intervene and say Trading Accounts is your fairy
godmother.
If you aren't using them you are a silly boy, Alex.
Some of the GBPs
are used for expenses expressed in EURs. The splits associated with these
expenses also have implicit exchange rates, but they don't have any
relationship to the purchased GBP's costs unless the user makes carefull
off-line calculations and enters the right amounts.
I think that is a broken example. Small transactions are allowed to be
discarded and joined into "we went out, bought a meal, had some some
drinks with lovely people in a pub", I'm not a social media person
(think it is all silly really) but don't have a problem with reality.
I think Alex is wanting to track lots when he shouldn't.
Alex: significant lots? sure; small amounts of spending? nope. trading
accounts do this for free anyway.
3. The user then uses left-over GBPs to buy USDs. The split entered into
gnucash has an implicit exchange rate of USDs to GBPs but nothing expressed
in Euros.
You and I my be agreeing on a problem that I have noticed in the TB
regarding presumed valuations.
If you want to run a report representing these transactions in Euros there
is no way to do so unless you use an externally supplied exchange rate
(e.g., from the price db) because the splits themselves don't have all the
required information.
Yes! I think you are a man so we will hug rather than kiss :)
All: I think I may have insulted Alex by not reading everything he said
before. It gets confusing sometimes.
Alex: you are allowed to say I am an idiot or fool.
If you want to run a report 'at cost', you also can't do this because item
3, above, doesn't contain the right information (so you have to 'fudge it'
with an amount from the price db).
This is wrong, the cost is yours or mine, an actual cost not a price.db
cost for a remote commodity. I agree with Alex.
This can be overcome procedurally in
gnucash by using the trick of entering the #3 transaction in a register of
an account denominated in Euros even if that account isn't involved in the
transaction.
Why would you do that? I am asking because I can't see the point.
One split will sell the GBPs in EURs, the other will buy USDs
in EURs and as soon as you hit the enter key, the transaction will
'disappear' from the register it was entered in (since neither of the
splits were for that account).
I wrote some stuff below and now I am asking, how do you get gnc to
disappear splits? I am in favour of gnc keeping them.
The transaction, however, will show up in
the registers for the accounts involved and they will contain the implicit
exchange rates that were missing above (but not necessarily with any lot
tracking and still requiring a lot of off-line calculations to figure out
the right numbers to enter into the splits).
Alex: you said something important there. I'm sure I'm not fighting
with you.
Thinking: there is something significant in Alex's para above, I think I
need to read it again. I may not reach the same conclusion but it would
be stupid if I didn't understand.
Now a report 'at cost' could
be run, but only if the trick was used procedurally for every transaction
not involving the home currency. Of course, this can't be assumed to be the
case.
I'm not convinced, if the report shows holdings in each commodity and
currency and it works every time <-- it has to, there are some times
pretending to be clever doesn't work, I think we are getting to that
point with Alex's proposal.
The 'book currency' feature is intended to deal with this by, if the 'book
currency' feature is selected, forcing every non-book-currency split to be
denominated in book-currency
No! No! No! Don't be aggressive towards good accounting!
(i.e., like the trick, above, but without
having to use a third account register)
you don't need to
and enforcing lot tracking for each
of these transactions (to get rid of all the off-line calculations),
also superfluous (there are reasons to use lot tracking) but lot
tracking *and* trading accounts leaves me thinking, hang on, maybe one
person doesn't understand the other person?
thus
providing a basis for tracking cost and eliminating the need for an
external price reference (unless you want to see an estimate of current
value).
Why wouldn't someone want to know the current value of stuff?
Are you so involved with the tiny penis Trump thinking that your USD is
worth a different amount to the USD I have?
I don't know if this is related to the problem Wm is seeing, but it might
be.
It looks like something no adult should implement unless explained better.
--
Wm
_______________________________________________
gnucash-devel mailing list
gnucash-devel@gnucash.org
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
