Hello, Homer 99:
On 2025-06-25 01:06, homer99 homer wrote:
... 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:
... [omit Case 1, it appears to be working well for you] ...
Case 2:
Attempting to directly enter a transaction into the register with a split to an Expense Account (CAD) opens the Transfer dialog
..., 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?
I think you are understanding well, and that you are wishing for the
same enhancement to GnuCash which I would like to see.
I am also in your situation: base currency in which most of my
transactions are denominated, but frequent enough use of foreign
currencies that I have income, expense, asset, and liability accounts in
those currencies also, and my reporting needs are informal enough that I
don't feel compelled to mark every transaction to my base currency.
I routinely run up against the Transfer Dialogue in the course of
entering transactions in foreign currencies. It frequently trips me up.
I discover that I entered the amount from the wrong currency in the
account register, so that the Transfer Dialogue appears with the foreign
and home currency amounts in the reverse places. I know of no way to
recover from this except to cancel out of the dialogue, change the
currency amount I enter in the register, then enter the dialogue again,
this time with the numbers the right way around.
So, the Transfer Dialogue is inflexible in a situation where I wish it
would be flexible. I sympathise with the GnuCash designers for this
dialogue. The inflexibility makes the dialogue easier to implement.
The enhancements I would like to see in this dialogue are:
1. Have it show the base currency of the transaction
2. Let you change the base currency of the transaction
3. Show you the actual from and to currencies in the dialogue
4. Let you swap the from and to currencies and amounts in the dialogue
5. If you change the split value brought into the dialogue from the
account register, write the changed value back to the account register
6. By default, re-use the exchange rate from another split when
calculating the base currency amount of a second split to an account
in the same non-base currency
7. (Maybe) let the user enter the total debits and total credits for a
transaction in the base currency and in each alternate currency, and
use this exchange rate for all splits in the transaction. (While the
transaction is incompletely entered, there will be some surplus
which is unassigned or orphan until the remaining splits are entered.)
8. The combination of 6. and 7. mean that one can enter multiple splits
in an alternate currency without having to fret about th exchange
rate to the base currency, each time, redundantly.
That would let me recover when I started entering a multicurrency
transaction the wrong way, by making corrections within the dialogue. I
would not need to back out of the dialogue, change my starting entry,
and enter the dialogue again.
I entered this enhancement request into the bugs database five years ago
as Bug 797660 - /Unexpected From/To relationship in Transfer Funds
dialogue /<https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797660> . Thank you
for giving me a reason to write this out again. I will add this
description of the enhancement to that request.
Some other related bugs in the bug database (I've added this list to Bug
797660:
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797661 "Exchange rate persists
even when edits make transaction single-currency"
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797664 "Per-split exchange
rates confusing, and UI doesn't explain well"
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797701 "Trading Accounts _
Improve Documentation"
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=796798 "Transfer Funds Dialog
Confusing" (which I would entitle, "Share price handling is confusing in
Transfer Funds Dialog")
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=796545 "Multi currency
transaction can in split view confuse users."
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534618 "Currency should also be
set in the transaction and not just the account"
https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=796997 "Currency Conversion
Dialog appears when recording transactions between same currency accounts."
Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
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