* Martin Michlmayr <t...@cyrius.com> [2012-09-29 20:03]:
> > Yet if I leave "$131.38" out, *that's* the amount that Ledger puts into
> > Expenses:Currency Loss for that transaction, automatically. What gives?
>
> Thierry and I brought up this issue in the past, see
> http://bugs.ledger-cli.org/show_bug.cgi?id=712
Okay, maybe I was to quick with that. It seems the problem you run
into is slightly different:
Your example and error:
| 2012/08/03 Venue Payment
| Assets:GBP Acct £-3,855.00 {=$1.5893}
| Assets:Checking £-6,145.00 {=$1.5552200}
| Expenses:Venue £10,000.00 {=$1.5552200}
| Expenses:Currency Loss $131.38
gives:
| Unbalanced remainder is:
| $131.38
| £3,855.00 {=$1.55522}
| £-3,855.00 {=$1.5893}
| Amount to balance against:
| $131.38
| £10,000.00 {=$1.55522}
| Error: Transaction does not balance
This is a different issue to the one in Bugzilla. The problem here is
that you have this on one side:
£-3,855.00 {=$1.5893}
£-6,145.00 {=$1.5552200}
and this on the other:
£10,000.00 {=$1.5552200}
To you this may look like the same (i.e. £10k) but since you use
different fixed prices, you actually have different commodities.
£1 {=$1.5893} is not the same as £1 {=$1.5552200} in ledger, and
therefore, adding up £-3,855.00 {=$1.5893} and £-6,145.00
{=$1.5552200} won't give you £10,000.00 {=$1.5552200}.
One way to solve it would simply be to say:
2012/08/03 Venue Payment
Assets:GBP Acct £-3,855.00 {=$1.5893}
Assets:Checking £-6,145.00 {=$1.5552200}
Expenses:Venue £3,855.00 {=$1.5893}
Expenses:Venue £6,145.00 {=$1.5552200}
Another solution would be to tell ledger that £1 {=$1.5893} and
£1 {=$1.5552200} are the "compatible", for example like this:
2012/08/03 Venue Payment
Assets:GBP Acct £-3,855.00 {$1.5893} @ $1.5552200
Assets:Checking £-6,145.00 {$1.5552200} @ $1.5552200
Expenses:Venue £10,000.00 {$1.5552200} @ $1.5552200
Expenses:Currency Loss $131.38
And here you run into the Bugzilla issue I initially mentioned.
BTW, @ $1.5552200 should probably use the exchange rate of the
day you paid the venue.
I'm not sure which solution is better. I still haven't quite got my
head around this aspect of ledger. I hope others can comment (in
particular Thierry who has a lot of experience in this area).
Finally, you may want to use the option --lot-prices together with
ledger bal. This shows you what's really going on behind the scenes.
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
