> On Jun 27, 2025, at 11:40 AM, homer99 homer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply, but I must admit I may not understand exactly what you
> are saying.
>
I’ll try again.
Every split has two numbers: An amount in the split account’s currency and a
value in the transaction currency. Transactions must balance, meaning that the
values have to sum to 0, with debits represented as positive numbers and
credits as negative numbers.
The transaction currency is the account currency for the register in which you
create the transaction: If that register is the foreign currency account then
the foreign currency is the transaction currency. In that case GnuCash must
convert the home currency amount into the transaction (foreign) currency to
balance the transaction.
Let’s make a concrete example. Suppose you’re visiting San Francisco. You will
have created a Cash-USD account. You go to the ATM and withdraw 100 USD. You’ll
likely book that by opening the Cash-USD account and entering
2025-06-27 US Cash from ATM Assets:Current Assets:Chequing 100 in basic view.
In Split View that would look like
2025-06-27 US Cash from ATM
Assets:Current Assets:Cash-USD 100.00
Assets:Current Assets:Chequing
136.80
Trading:Currency:USD
100.00
Trading:Currency:CAD 136.80
But that shows only the amounts. Suppose all registers were like stock
registers and showed price and value too. Then the Split View would look like
Amount
Price Debit Credit
2025-06-27 US Cash from ATM
Assets:Current Assets:Cash-USD
100.00 1.00 100.00
Assets:Current Assets:Chequing
-136.80 0.731 100.00
Trading:Currency:USD
-100.00 1.00 100.00
Trading:Currency:CAD
136.80 0.731 100.00
The price is what you enter in the Transaction Dialog’s exchange rate section.
It’s the rate from CAD to USD because the transaction currency is USD. Had you
created the transaction in the CAD Chequing account register it would be
2025-06-27 US Cash from ATM
Assets:Current Assets:Cash-USD
100.00 1.368 136.80
Assets:Current Assets:Chequing
-136.80 1.00 136.80
Trading:Currency:USD
-100.00 1.368 136.80
Trading:Currency:CAD
136.80 1.00 136.80
Now the non-unity prices are on the USD splits and are USD->CAD
Of course a currency transaction like this doesn’t display in a stock-format
register so the extra Amount and Price columns aren’t there. But you can still
see the price and value by viewing the transaction in Split View. Right click
on one of the USD splits and select Edit Exchange Rate… from the context menu.
If you created the transaction in a USD-denominated register it will pop a
message “The two currencies equal each other.” Do the same in a CAD split and
you’ll get the Transaction Dialog with everything disabled except the exchange
rate section. If you look at a transaction created in a CAD account it will be
the USD splits that have exchange rates and the rate will be USD->CAD.
Regards,
John Ralls
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
