> Postings which move amounts into or from these accounts will > always show amounts in terms of the posting's value at that time.
I'm a bit confused about this part. How would this work for cash accounts? How is the value at the time calculated? More specifically, does this mean that it will show me the Net Present Value of my accounts? That would be strange, considering there would be no actual cash changes. I think this feature is moving into the realm of finance more than accounting, I'm not sure of the added value. I guess this is related to the example in a previous post about using HOME as a commodity, right? Although I see the appeal of tracking floating values over time like this, it's non-standard in the accounting world. The 'regular' way to track this is to revaluate the asset every now and then, and make an explicit appreciation journal entry, debiting the Equity post. Or am I misunderstanding your proposal? cheers, roel On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 9:05 AM, John Wiegley <[email protected]> wrote: > I was thinking about commodity valuations last night, and I realized there is > fundamental detail which Ledger has no concept of right now: the finality of > postings. > > There are postings which are "open", waiting to be "closed" on another day. > For example, if I get paid at work, I now have money that is waiting to be > spent. This money is "open", in the sense that it's future has not been > determined. It therefore has a fluctuating value based on the cost of the > dollar. It's a movement of funds *in transition* from one place to another. > > Other postings are final, like when I pay $20 to see a movie. That $20 is > now finally and absolutely *spent*. It has no future, with regard to my > finances. Whatever valuation the amount had on the day I saw the movie is > the valuation it must always have. > > Reflecting on this, it seems that Income/Expenses are by nature final > categories, while Assets/Liabilities are open. Then again, sometimes there > are individual postings which should be considered final, even though their > parent account is not by rule. > > To accomodate this detail (which some have tried to express through fixated > commodities), I suggest the following additional syntax: > > final REGEXP > > Any accounting matching REGEXP is considered a final category. > Postings which move amounts into or from these accounts will > always show amounts in terms of the posting's value at that time. > > In addition, if a period (.) is found at the end of a posting's amount or > cost, the amount of that posting is considered final: > > Expenses:Food $20.00. > > Internally, this usage would be modelled using fixated commodities. The $ > would get annotated with the date of the posting, and then any use of -V or > -X would constrain the valuation to that date. If multiple commodities occur > in the transaction, then a fixed price is automatically set as well. > > I would like to know what those who use multiple commodities think about > this, and if it would make it possible to easily model your dealings with > multiple currencies. > > John >
