Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Christoph R]

Hi Mike,

> It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might work reasonably 
> well, is to make it possible (via a view option) to switch any register into 
> the format used for non-currency registers where there are separate columns 
> for shares, price, and value for each split.


as a heavy user of multiple currencies and trading accounts I would very much 
welcome that.

Cheers,
Christoph

> Am 20.08.2019 um 00:36 schrieb Mike Alexander :
> 
> I’ve been thinking for a while about how the register could be changed to 
> better handle multiple currency transactions with trading accounts   turned 
> on.  Back when I implemented trading accounts I knew this was a problem.  
> However at that time it was expected that the Register2 rewrite of the 
> register code would make the old register code obsolete so I didn’t worry 
> about it too much.  This is clearly no longer a valid assumption.
> 
> It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might work reasonably 
> well, is to make it possible (via a view option) to switch any register into 
> the format used for non-currency registers where there are separate columns 
> for shares, price, and value for each split.  The labels would need to be 
> changed for currency splits since “shares” becomes the value in the split’s 
> currency, “price” becomes exchange rate, and "value" remains the value in the 
> transaction currency.  Getting all the details right might be tricky, but 
> this seems to have possibilities.
> 
> The current code shows only one of those three values, and which one depends 
> on whether trading accounts are turned on.  If they are on it shows the value 
> in the split’s currency.  If off, it shows the value in the transaction's 
> currency.  This adds still more confusion to the situation.  A simple change 
> would be to make it always show the value in the split’s currency.  At least 
> then there wouldn’t be this confusion about what is being shown.  I didn’t do 
> this at the time because one of the goals was to make GnuCash work identical 
> to the way it worked before if trading accounts were turned off.
> 
> If I get some free time I might try to play around with this idea and see 
> where it goes.  If anyone else thinks this might work and wants to take a 
> crack at it, be my guest.  My time for software development is very limited 
> these days.
> 
>   Mike
> 
> PS: this probably should be moved to the Dev list if someone wants to 
> continue the discussion.
> 
>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:12 PM, John Ralls  wrote:
>> 
>> It's a difference in the way that the register works with or without trading 
>> accounts. If trading accounts are turned off then the register displays all 
>> splits converted to that register account's currency. If they're on then it 
>> displays each split in its own account's currency, with symbols for all but 
>> the current register's currency.
>> 
>> When dealing with multiple currencies "balance" can adopt different 
>> meanings. GnuCash requires that a transaction must balance in the 
>> transaction currency, which is generally the one for the account in whose 
>> register the transaction was created (or the first parent account 
>> denominated in a currency if the register is for a non-currency account). 
>> Since in a currency register the transaction currency value and the exchange 
>> rate between the register currency and transaction currency are hidden that 
>> can be difficult, especially in split view where the user is responsible for 
>> getting the (possibly invisible) values right. The more currencies involved 
>> in the transaction the harder it gets.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> John Ralls
>> 
>> 
>>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 9:39 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thanks, that's great, I'll have a play with that after work.
>>> 
>>> Two points concern me:
>>> 
>>> 1.  I don't see currency symbols in my registers.  Is this a setting?
>>> 
>>> 2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
>>> so I was expecting to see the GBP register all in GBP, the CHF register
>>> all in CHF, and the EUR register all in EUR.  That is, if one sums the
>>> columns of a register, the Dr and Cr columns should have the same sum. 
>>> Am I confused about this principle?
>>> 
>>> I'll need to read about the trading accounts feature.  As someone who
>>> regularly spends money in several currencies, I don't really think of
>>> these transactions as P&L related, though I'm aware they could be
>>> modeled that way.
>>> 
>>> Jeff
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 16/08/2019 18:13, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
 So the Cafe’s price was CHF 5.70?
 Your card was debited GBP 4.67?
 
 The Expense:Coffee account is set to EUR?
 
 
 First, yes, you’ll need Trading Accounts turned on.
 
 Second, open the price db and fetch rates, then check the EUR-GBP rate, 
 you’ll need it later. (I don’t see a way around this at present) For this 
 example, we’ll use 1.0957 w

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Fred Bone]

On 20 August 2019 at 13:17, Jeff Abrahamson said:

> When I said price editor, I meant the price database.  I've been
> assuming that the rates there are used for proposing rates on new
> transactions.

They are, but mainly because there has to be *some* default value. In 
most cases you will want to override the suggested conversion when 
creating the txn (the exception that springs first to my mind is entering 
a credit card purchase on the same day, when you won't know the actual 
rate until a day or two later).

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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Clint Chaplin]

I have been following this discussion rather closely.  I am American (not
something to be proud of right now), but I do travel a lot on business
worldwide, dealing with a lot of currencies.  It'll be interesting to see
how this resolves.

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 4:21 AM Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:

> When I said price editor, I meant the price database.  I've been
> assuming that the rates there are used for proposing rates on new
> transactions.
>
> Anyway, it sort of goes to my point that I think the documentation is
> less than clear for those of us who have regular transactions in
> multiple currencies due to the vagaries of where we're standing when we
> make a purchase, even while it's probably perfectly clear for those
> whose foreign currency transactions are limited to holidays.
>
> I didn't know that about reports.  I'm still learning clearly.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> On 20/08/2019 12:20, David Carlson wrote:
> > I thought this thread was discussing only transactions, not reports.
> > Jeff, the Price Editor does not come in to play in individual
> > transactions.  Transactions are self-contained with whatever exchange
> > rates happen therein.
> >
> > The Price editor exists for reports that are not tied to individual
> > transactions, but to aggregate values, either of assets or of incomes
> > and expenses.  Since some reports are supposed to be frozen at some
> > instant of time, say, at the end of a reporting period, and others are
> > supposed to accumulate over an interval of time, there is more than
> > one way to perform the aggregation appropriate to a particular report.
> >
> > Discussion of that feature is often heated, sometimes found to be
> > incorrect for this or that example, but not to be confused with
> > individual transactions that are fixed as a unit.
> >
> >
> > David Carlson
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 2:36 AM Jeff Abrahamson  > > wrote:
> >
> > It's not entirely unuseful that some of the discussion happens here
> on
> > the user list.  User input may be of interest.
> >
> > I'll add only one point, which is that I think the current English
> > language documentation doesn't explain as well as it might how to use
> > gnucash in the presence of more than one currency.  If I may say
> > it more
> > bluntly, it says it in a way that strikes me as useful to
> > Americans who
> > use non-local currency quite occasionally and less to Europeans
> > near the
> > UK or Swiss borders who use multiple currencies regularly.  (I can't
> > speak for the rest of the world.)
> >
> > Just one tiny and minor example.  The docs say that the price editor
> > will store only one FX rate per day for a currency pair.  Now
> > suppose I
> > purchase a croissant in the morning and a tea in the afternoon,
> > both on
> > my bank card, and my card says that the I paid x1 and x2 in GBP
> > respectively and they were debited from my account as y1 and y2 in
> > EUR.
> > That constitutes two different exchange rates in one day.  (This is
> an
> > experiment I've been meaning to try, but based on the documentation,
> > assuming it all works, it still won't leave me confident that
> > there's a
> > contract between me and gnucash to behave this way.)
> >
> > All that said, I still have to read up on the trading features
> (wasn't
> > at all obvious to me before this thread that this was relevant for FX
> > flow) and do a few experiments to understand it all better.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >
> > On 20/08/2019 00:36, Mike Alexander wrote:
> > > I’ve been thinking for a while about how the register could be
> > changed to better handle multiple currency transactions with
> > trading accounts   turned on.  Back when I implemented trading
> > accounts I knew this was a problem.  However at that time it was
> > expected that the Register2 rewrite of the register code would
> > make the old register code obsolete so I didn’t worry about it too
> > much.  This is clearly no longer a valid assumption.
> > >
> > > It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might
> > work reasonably well, is to make it possible (via a view option)
> > to switch any register into the format used for non-currency
> > registers where there are separate columns for shares, price, and
> > value for each split.  The labels would need to be changed for
> > currency splits since “shares” becomes the value in the split’s
> > currency, “price” becomes exchange rate, and "value" remains the
> > value in the transaction currency.  Getting all the details right
> > might be tricky, but this seems to have possibilities.
> > >
> > > The current code shows only one of those three values, and which
> > one depends on whether trading accounts are turned on.  If they
> > are on it shows the value in the split’s currency.  If off, it
> 

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Jeff Abrahamson]

When I said price editor, I meant the price database.  I've been
assuming that the rates there are used for proposing rates on new
transactions.

Anyway, it sort of goes to my point that I think the documentation is
less than clear for those of us who have regular transactions in
multiple currencies due to the vagaries of where we're standing when we
make a purchase, even while it's probably perfectly clear for those
whose foreign currency transactions are limited to holidays.

I didn't know that about reports.  I'm still learning clearly.

Jeff


On 20/08/2019 12:20, David Carlson wrote:
> I thought this thread was discussing only transactions, not reports. 
> Jeff, the Price Editor does not come in to play in individual
> transactions.  Transactions are self-contained with whatever exchange
> rates happen therein.
>
> The Price editor exists for reports that are not tied to individual
> transactions, but to aggregate values, either of assets or of incomes
> and expenses.  Since some reports are supposed to be frozen at some
> instant of time, say, at the end of a reporting period, and others are
> supposed to accumulate over an interval of time, there is more than
> one way to perform the aggregation appropriate to a particular report. 
>
> Discussion of that feature is often heated, sometimes found to be
> incorrect for this or that example, but not to be confused with
> individual transactions that are fixed as a unit.
>
>
> David Carlson
>
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 2:36 AM Jeff Abrahamson  > wrote:
>
> It's not entirely unuseful that some of the discussion happens here on
> the user list.  User input may be of interest.
>
> I'll add only one point, which is that I think the current English
> language documentation doesn't explain as well as it might how to use
> gnucash in the presence of more than one currency.  If I may say
> it more
> bluntly, it says it in a way that strikes me as useful to
> Americans who
> use non-local currency quite occasionally and less to Europeans
> near the
> UK or Swiss borders who use multiple currencies regularly.  (I can't
> speak for the rest of the world.)
>
> Just one tiny and minor example.  The docs say that the price editor
> will store only one FX rate per day for a currency pair.  Now
> suppose I
> purchase a croissant in the morning and a tea in the afternoon,
> both on
> my bank card, and my card says that the I paid x1 and x2 in GBP
> respectively and they were debited from my account as y1 and y2 in
> EUR. 
> That constitutes two different exchange rates in one day.  (This is an
> experiment I've been meaning to try, but based on the documentation,
> assuming it all works, it still won't leave me confident that
> there's a
> contract between me and gnucash to behave this way.)
>
> All that said, I still have to read up on the trading features (wasn't
> at all obvious to me before this thread that this was relevant for FX
> flow) and do a few experiments to understand it all better.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> On 20/08/2019 00:36, Mike Alexander wrote:
> > I’ve been thinking for a while about how the register could be
> changed to better handle multiple currency transactions with
> trading accounts   turned on.  Back when I implemented trading
> accounts I knew this was a problem.  However at that time it was
> expected that the Register2 rewrite of the register code would
> make the old register code obsolete so I didn’t worry about it too
> much.  This is clearly no longer a valid assumption.
> >
> > It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might
> work reasonably well, is to make it possible (via a view option)
> to switch any register into the format used for non-currency
> registers where there are separate columns for shares, price, and
> value for each split.  The labels would need to be changed for
> currency splits since “shares” becomes the value in the split’s
> currency, “price” becomes exchange rate, and "value" remains the
> value in the transaction currency.  Getting all the details right
> might be tricky, but this seems to have possibilities.
> >
> > The current code shows only one of those three values, and which
> one depends on whether trading accounts are turned on.  If they
> are on it shows the value in the split’s currency.  If off, it
> shows the value in the transaction's currency.  This adds still
> more confusion to the situation.  A simple change would be to make
> it always show the value in the split’s currency.  At least then
> there wouldn’t be this confusion about what is being shown.  I
> didn’t do this at the time because one of the goals was to make
> GnuCash work identical to the way it worked before if trading
> accounts were turned off.
> >
> > If I get some fre

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[David Carlson]

I thought this thread was discussing only transactions, not reports.  Jeff,
the Price Editor does not come in to play in individual transactions.
Transactions are self-contained with whatever exchange rates happen therein.

The Price editor exists for reports that are not tied to individual
transactions, but to aggregate values, either of assets or of incomes and
expenses.  Since some reports are supposed to be frozen at some instant of
time, say, at the end of a reporting period, and others are supposed to
accumulate over an interval of time, there is more than one way to perform
the aggregation appropriate to a particular report.

Discussion of that feature is often heated, sometimes found to be incorrect
for this or that example, but not to be confused with individual
transactions that are fixed as a unit.


David Carlson

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 2:36 AM Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:

> It's not entirely unuseful that some of the discussion happens here on
> the user list.  User input may be of interest.
>
> I'll add only one point, which is that I think the current English
> language documentation doesn't explain as well as it might how to use
> gnucash in the presence of more than one currency.  If I may say it more
> bluntly, it says it in a way that strikes me as useful to Americans who
> use non-local currency quite occasionally and less to Europeans near the
> UK or Swiss borders who use multiple currencies regularly.  (I can't
> speak for the rest of the world.)
>
> Just one tiny and minor example.  The docs say that the price editor
> will store only one FX rate per day for a currency pair.  Now suppose I
> purchase a croissant in the morning and a tea in the afternoon, both on
> my bank card, and my card says that the I paid x1 and x2 in GBP
> respectively and they were debited from my account as y1 and y2 in EUR.
> That constitutes two different exchange rates in one day.  (This is an
> experiment I've been meaning to try, but based on the documentation,
> assuming it all works, it still won't leave me confident that there's a
> contract between me and gnucash to behave this way.)
>
> All that said, I still have to read up on the trading features (wasn't
> at all obvious to me before this thread that this was relevant for FX
> flow) and do a few experiments to understand it all better.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> On 20/08/2019 00:36, Mike Alexander wrote:
> > I’ve been thinking for a while about how the register could be changed
> to better handle multiple currency transactions with trading accounts
>  turned on.  Back when I implemented trading accounts I knew this was a
> problem.  However at that time it was expected that the Register2 rewrite
> of the register code would make the old register code obsolete so I didn’t
> worry about it too much.  This is clearly no longer a valid assumption.
> >
> > It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might work
> reasonably well, is to make it possible (via a view option) to switch any
> register into the format used for non-currency registers where there are
> separate columns for shares, price, and value for each split.  The labels
> would need to be changed for currency splits since “shares” becomes the
> value in the split’s currency, “price” becomes exchange rate, and "value"
> remains the value in the transaction currency.  Getting all the details
> right might be tricky, but this seems to have possibilities.
> >
> > The current code shows only one of those three values, and which one
> depends on whether trading accounts are turned on.  If they are on it shows
> the value in the split’s currency.  If off, it shows the value in the
> transaction's currency.  This adds still more confusion to the situation.
> A simple change would be to make it always show the value in the split’s
> currency.  At least then there wouldn’t be this confusion about what is
> being shown.  I didn’t do this at the time because one of the goals was to
> make GnuCash work identical to the way it worked before if trading accounts
> were turned off.
> >
> > If I get some free time I might try to play around with this idea and
> see where it goes.  If anyone else thinks this might work and wants to take
> a crack at it, be my guest.  My time for software development is very
> limited these days.
> >
> >Mike
> >
> > PS: this probably should be moved to the Dev list if someone wants to
> continue the discussion.
> >
> >> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:12 PM, John Ralls  wrote:
> >>
> >> It's a difference in the way that the register works with or without
> trading accounts. If trading accounts are turned off then the register
> displays all splits converted to that register account's currency. If
> they're on then it displays each split in its own account's currency, with
> symbols for all but the current register's currency.
> >>
> >> When dealing with multiple currencies "balance" can adopt different
> meanings. GnuCash requires that a transaction must balance in the
> tran

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Jeff Abrahamson]

It's not entirely unuseful that some of the discussion happens here on
the user list.  User input may be of interest.

I'll add only one point, which is that I think the current English
language documentation doesn't explain as well as it might how to use
gnucash in the presence of more than one currency.  If I may say it more
bluntly, it says it in a way that strikes me as useful to Americans who
use non-local currency quite occasionally and less to Europeans near the
UK or Swiss borders who use multiple currencies regularly.  (I can't
speak for the rest of the world.)

Just one tiny and minor example.  The docs say that the price editor
will store only one FX rate per day for a currency pair.  Now suppose I
purchase a croissant in the morning and a tea in the afternoon, both on
my bank card, and my card says that the I paid x1 and x2 in GBP
respectively and they were debited from my account as y1 and y2 in EUR. 
That constitutes two different exchange rates in one day.  (This is an
experiment I've been meaning to try, but based on the documentation,
assuming it all works, it still won't leave me confident that there's a
contract between me and gnucash to behave this way.)

All that said, I still have to read up on the trading features (wasn't
at all obvious to me before this thread that this was relevant for FX
flow) and do a few experiments to understand it all better.

Jeff


On 20/08/2019 00:36, Mike Alexander wrote:
> I’ve been thinking for a while about how the register could be changed to 
> better handle multiple currency transactions with trading accounts   turned 
> on.  Back when I implemented trading accounts I knew this was a problem.  
> However at that time it was expected that the Register2 rewrite of the 
> register code would make the old register code obsolete so I didn’t worry 
> about it too much.  This is clearly no longer a valid assumption.
>
> It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might work reasonably 
> well, is to make it possible (via a view option) to switch any register into 
> the format used for non-currency registers where there are separate columns 
> for shares, price, and value for each split.  The labels would need to be 
> changed for currency splits since “shares” becomes the value in the split’s 
> currency, “price” becomes exchange rate, and "value" remains the value in the 
> transaction currency.  Getting all the details right might be tricky, but 
> this seems to have possibilities.
>
> The current code shows only one of those three values, and which one depends 
> on whether trading accounts are turned on.  If they are on it shows the value 
> in the split’s currency.  If off, it shows the value in the transaction's 
> currency.  This adds still more confusion to the situation.  A simple change 
> would be to make it always show the value in the split’s currency.  At least 
> then there wouldn’t be this confusion about what is being shown.  I didn’t do 
> this at the time because one of the goals was to make GnuCash work identical 
> to the way it worked before if trading accounts were turned off.
>
> If I get some free time I might try to play around with this idea and see 
> where it goes.  If anyone else thinks this might work and wants to take a 
> crack at it, be my guest.  My time for software development is very limited 
> these days.
>
>Mike
>
> PS: this probably should be moved to the Dev list if someone wants to 
> continue the discussion.
>
>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:12 PM, John Ralls  wrote:
>>
>> It's a difference in the way that the register works with or without trading 
>> accounts. If trading accounts are turned off then the register displays all 
>> splits converted to that register account's currency. If they're on then it 
>> displays each split in its own account's currency, with symbols for all but 
>> the current register's currency.
>>
>> When dealing with multiple currencies "balance" can adopt different 
>> meanings. GnuCash requires that a transaction must balance in the 
>> transaction currency, which is generally the one for the account in whose 
>> register the transaction was created (or the first parent account 
>> denominated in a currency if the register is for a non-currency account). 
>> Since in a currency register the transaction currency value and the exchange 
>> rate between the register currency and transaction currency are hidden that 
>> can be difficult, especially in split view where the user is responsible for 
>> getting the (possibly invisible) values right. The more currencies involved 
>> in the transaction the harder it gets.
>>
>> Regards,
>> John Ralls
>>
>>
>>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 9:39 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks, that's great, I'll have a play with that after work.
>>>
>>> Two points concern me:
>>>
>>> 1.  I don't see currency symbols in my registers.  Is this a setting?
>>>
>>> 2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
>>> so I was 

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Mike Alexander]

I’ve been thinking for a while about how the register could be changed to 
better handle multiple currency transactions with trading accounts   turned on. 
 Back when I implemented trading accounts I knew this was a problem.  However 
at that time it was expected that the Register2 rewrite of the register code 
would make the old register code obsolete so I didn’t worry about it too much.  
This is clearly no longer a valid assumption.

It seems to me that the simplest solution, and one that might work reasonably 
well, is to make it possible (via a view option) to switch any register into 
the format used for non-currency registers where there are separate columns for 
shares, price, and value for each split.  The labels would need to be changed 
for currency splits since “shares” becomes the value in the split’s currency, 
“price” becomes exchange rate, and "value" remains the value in the transaction 
currency.  Getting all the details right might be tricky, but this seems to 
have possibilities.

The current code shows only one of those three values, and which one depends on 
whether trading accounts are turned on.  If they are on it shows the value in 
the split’s currency.  If off, it shows the value in the transaction's 
currency.  This adds still more confusion to the situation.  A simple change 
would be to make it always show the value in the split’s currency.  At least 
then there wouldn’t be this confusion about what is being shown.  I didn’t do 
this at the time because one of the goals was to make GnuCash work identical to 
the way it worked before if trading accounts were turned off.

If I get some free time I might try to play around with this idea and see where 
it goes.  If anyone else thinks this might work and wants to take a crack at 
it, be my guest.  My time for software development is very limited these days.

   Mike

PS: this probably should be moved to the Dev list if someone wants to continue 
the discussion.

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:12 PM, John Ralls  wrote:
> 
> It's a difference in the way that the register works with or without trading 
> accounts. If trading accounts are turned off then the register displays all 
> splits converted to that register account's currency. If they're on then it 
> displays each split in its own account's currency, with symbols for all but 
> the current register's currency.
> 
> When dealing with multiple currencies "balance" can adopt different meanings. 
> GnuCash requires that a transaction must balance in the transaction currency, 
> which is generally the one for the account in whose register the transaction 
> was created (or the first parent account denominated in a currency if the 
> register is for a non-currency account). Since in a currency register the 
> transaction currency value and the exchange rate between the register 
> currency and transaction currency are hidden that can be difficult, 
> especially in split view where the user is responsible for getting the 
> (possibly invisible) values right. The more currencies involved in the 
> transaction the harder it gets.
> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls
> 
> 
>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 9:39 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
>> 
>> Thanks, that's great, I'll have a play with that after work.
>> 
>> Two points concern me:
>> 
>> 1.  I don't see currency symbols in my registers.  Is this a setting?
>> 
>> 2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
>> so I was expecting to see the GBP register all in GBP, the CHF register
>> all in CHF, and the EUR register all in EUR.  That is, if one sums the
>> columns of a register, the Dr and Cr columns should have the same sum. 
>> Am I confused about this principle?
>> 
>> I'll need to read about the trading accounts feature.  As someone who
>> regularly spends money in several currencies, I don't really think of
>> these transactions as P&L related, though I'm aware they could be
>> modeled that way.
>> 
>> Jeff
>> 
>> 
>> On 16/08/2019 18:13, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>>> So the Cafe’s price was CHF 5.70?
>>> Your card was debited GBP 4.67?
>>> 
>>> The Expense:Coffee account is set to EUR?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> First, yes, you’ll need Trading Accounts turned on.
>>> 
>>> Second, open the price db and fetch rates, then check the EUR-GBP rate, 
>>> you’ll need it later. (I don’t see a way around this at present) For this 
>>> example, we’ll use 1.0957 which I fetched just now.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Third, start your transaction by entering the following to ‘fund’ the card 
>>> with CHF:
>>> 
>>> Cr. TransferwiseGBP 4.67
>>> Dr. Transferwise_CHFCHF 5.70
>>> 
>>> (GnuCash will prompt for a GBP-CHF exhange rate, use the ‘debit’ radio 
>>> button and field and enter the CHF amount, in this case, “-5.70")
>>> 
>>> The transaction should now read something like:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -
>>> 
>>> Account Debit   Credit
>>> 
>>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise 

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Adrien Monteleone]

On second thought, a slight correction —if each account only showed amounts 
converted to its own currency - NONE of the splits would match any other 
account’s view of the transaction.

The Credit of GBP from Transferwise would be a different amount in the 
Transferwise_CHF account and a 3rd amount in the Coffee account with no 
currency symbols to tip you off. Same for the other splits.

To audit that transaction, you’d have to open all three registers and do lots 
of math to verify exchange rates just to make sure you’ve got it right and that 
you really are looking at the same transaction.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 2:11 PM, Adrien Monteleone 
>  wrote:
> 
>> On Aug 16, 2019, at 11:39 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
>> so I was expecting to see the GBP register all in GBP, the CHF register
>> all in CHF, and the EUR register all in EUR.  That is, if one sums the
>> columns of a register, the Dr and Cr columns should have the same sum. 
>> Am I confused about this principle?
> 
> They do balance.
> 
> Debit Credit
> SFr.5.70  SFr.5.70
> €5.12 €5.12
> £4.67 £4.67
> 
> They are in a different order but the debits and credits match up.
> 
> You can ignore the currency symbols or not. You could if you wanted, convert 
> all 6 amounts to each of the three currencies in each of the three affected 
> accounts (if this were pen and paper) and they’d each net to zero.
> 
> Personally, GnuCash’s approach sounds more sane to me than having each 
> account only showing equivalent amounts in that account’s home currency. 
> Because then only one set of debits/credits would match only one other 
> account. Trying to research this transaction or the affected accounts for any 
> type of error or analysis would be quite difficult. By showing each currency 
> separately in each of the three register accounts, means each view of the 
> transaction matches both of the other two views. The only thing that will 
> vary will be the debit/credit side of particular splits which happens even if 
> all splits are in a single currency anyway.
> 
>> 
>> I'll need to read about the trading accounts feature.  As someone who
>> regularly spends money in several currencies, I don't really think of
>> these transactions as P&L related, though I'm aware they could be
>> modeled that way.
> 
> The Expense is P&L related, but not the other splits. Those however affect 
> the Balance Sheet because they affect assets.
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien


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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 11:39 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
> 
> 
> 2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
> so I was expecting to see the GBP register all in GBP, the CHF register
> all in CHF, and the EUR register all in EUR.  That is, if one sums the
> columns of a register, the Dr and Cr columns should have the same sum. 
> Am I confused about this principle?

They do balance.

Debit   Credit
SFr.5.70SFr.5.70
€5.12   €5.12
£4.67   £4.67

They are in a different order but the debits and credits match up.

You can ignore the currency symbols or not. You could if you wanted, convert 
all 6 amounts to each of the three currencies in each of the three affected 
accounts (if this were pen and paper) and they’d each net to zero.

Personally, GnuCash’s approach sounds more sane to me than having each account 
only showing equivalent amounts in that account’s home currency. Because then 
only one set of debits/credits would match only one other account. Trying to 
research this transaction or the affected accounts for any type of error or 
analysis would be quite difficult. By showing each currency separately in each 
of the three register accounts, means each view of the transaction matches both 
of the other two views. The only thing that will vary will be the debit/credit 
side of particular splits which happens even if all splits are in a single 
currency anyway.

> 
> I'll need to read about the trading accounts feature.  As someone who
> regularly spends money in several currencies, I don't really think of
> these transactions as P&L related, though I'm aware they could be
> modeled that way.

The Expense is P&L related, but not the other splits. Those however affect the 
Balance Sheet because they affect assets.

Regards,
Adrien
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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[John Ralls]

It's a difference in the way that the register works with or without trading 
accounts. If trading accounts are turned off then the register displays all 
splits converted to that register account's currency. If they're on then it 
displays each split in its own account's currency, with symbols for all but the 
current register's currency.

When dealing with multiple currencies "balance" can adopt different meanings. 
GnuCash requires that a transaction must balance in the transaction currency, 
which is generally the one for the account in whose register the transaction 
was created (or the first parent account denominated in a currency if the 
register is for a non-currency account). Since in a currency register the 
transaction currency value and the exchange rate between the register currency 
and transaction currency are hidden that can be difficult, especially in split 
view where the user is responsible for getting the (possibly invisible) values 
right. The more currencies involved in the transaction the harder it gets.

Regards,
John Ralls


> On Aug 16, 2019, at 9:39 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
> 
> Thanks, that's great, I'll have a play with that after work.
> 
> Two points concern me:
> 
> 1.  I don't see currency symbols in my registers.  Is this a setting?
> 
> 2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
> so I was expecting to see the GBP register all in GBP, the CHF register
> all in CHF, and the EUR register all in EUR.  That is, if one sums the
> columns of a register, the Dr and Cr columns should have the same sum. 
> Am I confused about this principle?
> 
> I'll need to read about the trading accounts feature.  As someone who
> regularly spends money in several currencies, I don't really think of
> these transactions as P&L related, though I'm aware they could be
> modeled that way.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> On 16/08/2019 18:13, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>> So the Cafe’s price was CHF 5.70?
>> Your card was debited GBP 4.67?
>> 
>> The Expense:Coffee account is set to EUR?
>> 
>> 
>> First, yes, you’ll need Trading Accounts turned on.
>> 
>> Second, open the price db and fetch rates, then check the EUR-GBP rate, 
>> you’ll need it later. (I don’t see a way around this at present) For this 
>> example, we’ll use 1.0957 which I fetched just now.
>> 
>> 
>> Third, start your transaction by entering the following to ‘fund’ the card 
>> with CHF:
>> 
>>  Cr. TransferwiseGBP 4.67
>> Dr. Transferwise_CHF CHF 5.70
>> 
>> (GnuCash will prompt for a GBP-CHF exhange rate, use the ‘debit’ radio 
>> button and field and enter the CHF amount, in this case, “-5.70")
>> 
>> The transaction should now read something like:
>> 
>> 
>> -
>>  
>> Account  Debit   Credit
>> 
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise   4.67
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF   SFr.5.70
>> 
>> -
>> 
>> 
>> (the 4.67 has no currency symbol because it is in the account’s currency - 
>> GBP)
>> 
>> Fourth, enter the actual expense part of the transaction:
>> 
>> Dr. Expenses:Coffee  EUR 5.12
>> 
>> The EUR 5.13 price is based on today’s rate between EUR-GBP above and 
>> calculated either on the side, or directly in the debit-entry field. (enter 
>> as: GBP*rate or 4.67*1.0957) We’re using the EUR-GBP instead of CHF-EUR 
>> because this transaction is being entered in the Transferwise (GBP) account.
>> 
>> When GnuCash prompts for the exchange rate, simply commit the FX window. We 
>> couldn’t wait to fetch the rate here, because we’d have to back out and 
>> re-enter the amount in the register to match.
>> 
>> Now, the transaction reads like this:
>> 
>> 
>> -
>>  
>> Account  Debit   Credit
>> 
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise   4.67
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF   SFr.5.70
>> Expenses:Coffee  €5.12
>> 
>> -
>> 
>> 
>> Fifth, you need to balance this with CHF funds taken from the card:
>> 
>> Cr. Transferwise_CHF 5.70
>> 
>> (GnuCash will again prompt for exchange rate, use ‘debit’ and “5.70” for the 
>> amount)
>> 
>> The transaction now looks like this:
>> 
>> 
>> -
>>  
>> Account  Debit   Credit
>> 
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise   4.67
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF   SFr.5.70
>> Expenses:Coffee  €5.12
>> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF   SFr.5.70
>> 
>> -
>> 
>> 
>> Sixth, since you have Trading Accounts turned on, when you hit `Enter` to 
>> commit this transaction GnuCash will add the balancing splits so your 
>> transaction looks like this in final form:
>> 
>> 
>> -
>>  
>> Account

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Jeff Abrahamson]

Thanks, that's great, I'll have a play with that after work.

Two points concern me:

1.  I don't see currency symbols in my registers.  Is this a setting?

2.  I've been taught in accounting that transactions must balance, and
so I was expecting to see the GBP register all in GBP, the CHF register
all in CHF, and the EUR register all in EUR.  That is, if one sums the
columns of a register, the Dr and Cr columns should have the same sum. 
Am I confused about this principle?

I'll need to read about the trading accounts feature.  As someone who
regularly spends money in several currencies, I don't really think of
these transactions as P&L related, though I'm aware they could be
modeled that way.

Jeff


On 16/08/2019 18:13, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> So the Cafe’s price was CHF 5.70?
> Your card was debited GBP 4.67?
>
> The Expense:Coffee account is set to EUR?
>
>
> First, yes, you’ll need Trading Accounts turned on.
>
> Second, open the price db and fetch rates, then check the EUR-GBP rate, 
> you’ll need it later. (I don’t see a way around this at present) For this 
> example, we’ll use 1.0957 which I fetched just now.
>
>
> Third, start your transaction by entering the following to ‘fund’ the card 
> with CHF:
>
>   Cr. TransferwiseGBP 4.67
> Dr. Transferwise_CHF  CHF 5.70
>
> (GnuCash will prompt for a GBP-CHF exhange rate, use the ‘debit’ radio button 
> and field and enter the CHF amount, in this case, “-5.70")
>
> The transaction should now read something like:
>
>
> -
>   
> Account   Debit   Credit
>
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise4.67
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHFSFr.5.70
>
> -
>
>
> (the 4.67 has no currency symbol because it is in the account’s currency - 
> GBP)
>
> Fourth, enter the actual expense part of the transaction:
>
> Dr. Expenses:Coffee   EUR 5.12
>
> The EUR 5.13 price is based on today’s rate between EUR-GBP above and 
> calculated either on the side, or directly in the debit-entry field. (enter 
> as: GBP*rate or 4.67*1.0957) We’re using the EUR-GBP instead of CHF-EUR 
> because this transaction is being entered in the Transferwise (GBP) account.
>
> When GnuCash prompts for the exchange rate, simply commit the FX window. We 
> couldn’t wait to fetch the rate here, because we’d have to back out and 
> re-enter the amount in the register to match.
>
> Now, the transaction reads like this:
>
>
> -
>   
> Account   Debit   Credit
>
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise4.67
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHFSFr.5.70
> Expenses:Coffee   €5.12
>
> -
>
>
> Fifth, you need to balance this with CHF funds taken from the card:
>
> Cr. Transferwise_CHF  5.70
>
> (GnuCash will again prompt for exchange rate, use ‘debit’ and “5.70” for the 
> amount)
>
> The transaction now looks like this:
>
>
> -
>   
> Account   Debit   Credit
>
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise4.67
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHFSFr.5.70
> Expenses:Coffee   €5.12
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHFSFr.5.70
>
> -
>
>
> Sixth, since you have Trading Accounts turned on, when you hit `Enter` to 
> commit this transaction GnuCash will add the balancing splits so your 
> transaction looks like this in final form:
>
>
> -
>   
> Account   Debit   Credit
>
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHFSFr.5.70
> Expenses:Coffee   €5.12
> Trading:CURRENCY:GBP  £4.67
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise4.67
> Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHFSFr.5.70
> Trading:CURRENCY:EUR  €5.12
>
> -
>
> You can of course, make the transaction more ‘complete’ (or complicated as 
> per your perspective) by also using actual CHF-GBP and CHF-EUR rates and 
> accounting for the conversion fee rather than using the ‘debit’ option for 
> those two splits.
>
> You could also separate this into two transactions, one to ‘fund’ the CHF, 
> then another to spend that on Coffee.
>
> Note, that I tried doing this from the Expense account, but it was messy. I 
> also couldn’t find a way to get GnuCash to calculate the EUR price of the 
> transaction for me using the fetched rate. Maybe someone else has a trick up 
> their sleeve.
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
>
>> On Aug 15, 2019, at 9:38 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
>>
>> I purchased a coffee in Switzerland using my GBP-based Transferwise
>> card.  That card could hold a CHF balance

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Adrien Monteleone]

Sorry, I thought I proofed that better. Wherever you see €5.13, that should be 
€5.12. It really doesn’t matter, as it is just for illustration.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Aug 16, 2019, at 11:13 AM, Adrien Monteleone 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> The EUR 5.13 price is based on today’s rate between EUR-GBP above and 
> calculated either on the side, or directly in the debit-entry field. (enter 
> as: GBP*rate or 4.67*1.0957) We’re using the EUR-GBP instead of CHF-EUR 
> because this transaction is being entered in the Transferwise (GBP) account.


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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Adrien Monteleone]

So the Cafe’s price was CHF 5.70?
Your card was debited GBP 4.67?

The Expense:Coffee account is set to EUR?


First, yes, you’ll need Trading Accounts turned on.

Second, open the price db and fetch rates, then check the EUR-GBP rate, you’ll 
need it later. (I don’t see a way around this at present) For this example, 
we’ll use 1.0957 which I fetched just now.


Third, start your transaction by entering the following to ‘fund’ the card with 
CHF:

Cr. TransferwiseGBP 4.67
Dr. Transferwise_CHFCHF 5.70

(GnuCash will prompt for a GBP-CHF exhange rate, use the ‘debit’ radio button 
and field and enter the CHF amount, in this case, “-5.70")

The transaction should now read something like:


-

Account Debit   Credit

Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise  4.67
Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF  SFr.5.70

-


(the 4.67 has no currency symbol because it is in the account’s currency - GBP)

Fourth, enter the actual expense part of the transaction:

Dr. Expenses:Coffee EUR 5.12

The EUR 5.13 price is based on today’s rate between EUR-GBP above and 
calculated either on the side, or directly in the debit-entry field. (enter as: 
GBP*rate or 4.67*1.0957) We’re using the EUR-GBP instead of CHF-EUR because 
this transaction is being entered in the Transferwise (GBP) account.

When GnuCash prompts for the exchange rate, simply commit the FX window. We 
couldn’t wait to fetch the rate here, because we’d have to back out and 
re-enter the amount in the register to match.

Now, the transaction reads like this:


-

Account Debit   Credit

Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise  4.67
Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF  SFr.5.70
Expenses:Coffee €5.12

-


Fifth, you need to balance this with CHF funds taken from the card:

Cr. Transferwise_CHF5.70

(GnuCash will again prompt for exchange rate, use ‘debit’ and “5.70” for the 
amount)

The transaction now looks like this:


-

Account Debit   Credit

Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise  4.67
Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF  SFr.5.70
Expenses:Coffee €5.12
Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF  SFr.5.70

-


Sixth, since you have Trading Accounts turned on, when you hit `Enter` to 
commit this transaction GnuCash will add the balancing splits so your 
transaction looks like this in final form:


-

Account Debit   Credit

Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF  SFr.5.70
Expenses:Coffee €5.12
Trading:CURRENCY:GBP£4.67
Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise  4.67
Assets:Current Assets:Transferwise_CHF  SFr.5.70
Trading:CURRENCY:EUR€5.12

-

You can of course, make the transaction more ‘complete’ (or complicated as per 
your perspective) by also using actual CHF-GBP and CHF-EUR rates and accounting 
for the conversion fee rather than using the ‘debit’ option for those two 
splits.

You could also separate this into two transactions, one to ‘fund’ the CHF, then 
another to spend that on Coffee.

Note, that I tried doing this from the Expense account, but it was messy. I 
also couldn’t find a way to get GnuCash to calculate the EUR price of the 
transaction for me using the fetched rate. Maybe someone else has a trick up 
their sleeve.

Regards,
Adrien


> On Aug 15, 2019, at 9:38 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
> 
> I purchased a coffee in Switzerland using my GBP-based Transferwise
> card.  That card could hold a CHF balance, but on that day it held only
> GBP.  My local currency is EUR.  So I can think of my coffee purchase as
> two FX transactions: funding (GBP -> CHF) and an expense (CHF -> EUR).
> 
> What Transferwise tells me is the amount of the purchase and the amount
> of the transaction.  (I can also poke further and find the exchange rate
> they used and the minuscule fee, but the important point to me is the
> the two endpoints.)
> 
> Now what makes sense to me based on reading about accounting principles
> for multiple currencies is that I should make one transaction thus:
> 
>Coffee (CHF)   <--  Bank (GBP)# This is the funding part of
>the transaction.
>Expense acct   <--  Coffee (CHF)  # Here I'm tracking the actual
>expense.
> 
> I put those in a single transaction for easier understanding later. 
> Here I've created a bank account for Transferwise (GBP) as well as
> subaccounts of that called Transferwise_CHF and some others, denominated
> in the indicated currencies.  Tho

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Derek Atkins]

Jeff Abrahamson  writes:

> Apparently the mailing list strips images, even very tiny ones.

The mailing list strips HTML.

If you attach an image then it'll make it through.

> The first image simply showed Transferwise associating 5.70 CFH = 4.67 GBP.
>
> The second showed that gnucash is creating a correcting split in the
> transaction I'd entered:
>
> 512452_Transferwise CHF    5.70
> 6212_cafe  5.70
> 512452_Transferwise CHF    5.70
> 51245_Transferwise 5.70
>    2.80
>
> And that 2.80 is rather odd.

I would simplify this a bit and only worry about the asset-currency
amount in the expense.  I.e., I'd ignore one (or possibly even two) of
the currencies in use.  So I'd either encode it as a GBP expense
(assuming the "funding" amount == "expense amount including all transfer
fees").  Or ignore the CHF and go GBP->EUR.

Of course you can include all the CHF (and EUR) amounts in the
description.

-derek

> Jeff Abrahamson
>
>
> On 15/08/2019 16:38, Jeff Abrahamson wrote:
>> I purchased a coffee in Switzerland using my GBP-based Transferwise
>> card.  That card could hold a CHF balance, but on that day it held only
>> GBP.  My local currency is EUR.  So I can think of my coffee purchase as
>> two FX transactions: funding (GBP -> CHF) and an expense (CHF -> EUR).
>>
>> What Transferwise tells me is the amount of the purchase and the amount
>> of the transaction.  (I can also poke further and find the exchange rate
>> they used and the minuscule fee, but the important point to me is the
>> the two endpoints.)
>>
>> Now what makes sense to me based on reading about accounting principles
>> for multiple currencies is that I should make one transaction thus:
>>
>> Coffee (CHF)   <--  Bank (GBP)    # This is the funding part of
>> the transaction.
>> Expense acct   <--  Coffee (CHF)  # Here I'm tracking the actual
>> expense.
>>
>> I put those in a single transaction for easier understanding later. 
>> Here I've created a bank account for Transferwise (GBP) as well as
>> subaccounts of that called Transferwise_CHF and some others, denominated
>> in the indicated currencies.  Those three accounts are transfer
>> accounts: I usually expect them to have zero balance.
>>
>> Transferwise_CHF   <--  Transferwise (GBP)   # This is the
>> funding part of the transaction.
>> Expense/cafe       <--  Transferwise_CHF     # Here I'm tracking
>> the actual expense.
>>
>> Gnucash asks me for some exchange rates, and I answer for the CHF - GBP
>> part with the specific numbers provided by Transferwise and for the GBP
>> - EUR part with the exchange rate I've downloaded for that date.
>>
>> I expect to see this in the account Transferwise_CHF
>>
>> 5.70   <--  5.70   # This is the funding part of the transaction.
>> 5.70   <--  5.70   # Here I'm tracking the actual expense.
>>
>> and this in the Transferwise (GBP) account
>>
>> 4.67   <--  4.67   # This is the funding part of the transaction.
>> 4.67   <--  4.67   # Here I'm tracking the actual expense.
>>
>> and something similar looking at the splits in the (euro-denominated
>> expense account).
>>
>> But what I see (from the perspective of the CHF account) is this, which
>> makes no sense to me:
>>
>> Gnucash has entered the 2.80, and deleting that split just makes it pop
>> up again.  Something is terribly wrong if any  account's view of the
>> transaction doesn't balance.  (This is gnucash 3.4, ubuntu, build id
>> 3.4+ (2018-12-30).
>>
>> Is this my error or a bug in gnucash?  Any pointers?
>>
>>
>> Somewhat related, I thought to import historical currencies, as I'm back
>> filling some data for analysis purposes.  I grabbed 10 years of daily
>> quotes and imported them (3600 or so rows of data per currency).  All ok
>> for GBP - EUR.  When I do the same for CHF - EUR, gnucash says it's done
>> it, but the price database doesn't show more than a handful.  When I do
>> it for JPY - EUR, gnucash says it's done but the price editor shows none
>> of them.  The proposed exchange rates when entering transactions are
>> consistent with what the price editor thinks it knows.
>>
>> Is there a limit on FX rates?  (This is about 4000, which doesn't strike
>> me as terribly large.)
>>

-- 
   Derek Atkins 617-623-3745
   de...@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com
   Computer and Internet Security Consultant
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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[John Ralls]

The list server doesn't like inline images. It mostly works with images stuck 
at the end of the message. Mostly.

In what account is the 2.80 debit? In which account (and so which currency) did 
you create the transaction?

A side note, have you considered/tried enabling trading accounts? Some users 
who operate in multiple currencies find them useful.

Regards,
John Ralls



> On Aug 15, 2019, at 7:54 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
> 
> Apparently the mailing list strips images, even very tiny ones.
> 
> The first image simply showed Transferwise associating 5.70 CFH = 4.67 GBP.
> 
> The second showed that gnucash is creating a correcting split in the
> transaction I'd entered:
> 
>512452_Transferwise CHF5.70
>6212_cafe  5.70
>512452_Transferwise CHF5.70
>51245_Transferwise 5.70
>   2.80
> 
> And that 2.80 is rather odd.
> 
> Jeff Abrahamson
> 
> 
> On 15/08/2019 16:38, Jeff Abrahamson wrote:
>> I purchased a coffee in Switzerland using my GBP-based Transferwise
>> card.  That card could hold a CHF balance, but on that day it held only
>> GBP.  My local currency is EUR.  So I can think of my coffee purchase as
>> two FX transactions: funding (GBP -> CHF) and an expense (CHF -> EUR).
>> 
>> What Transferwise tells me is the amount of the purchase and the amount
>> of the transaction.  (I can also poke further and find the exchange rate
>> they used and the minuscule fee, but the important point to me is the
>> the two endpoints.)
>> 
>> Now what makes sense to me based on reading about accounting principles
>> for multiple currencies is that I should make one transaction thus:
>> 
>>Coffee (CHF)   <--  Bank (GBP)# This is the funding part of
>>the transaction.
>>Expense acct   <--  Coffee (CHF)  # Here I'm tracking the actual
>>expense.
>> 
>> I put those in a single transaction for easier understanding later. 
>> Here I've created a bank account for Transferwise (GBP) as well as
>> subaccounts of that called Transferwise_CHF and some others, denominated
>> in the indicated currencies.  Those three accounts are transfer
>> accounts: I usually expect them to have zero balance.
>> 
>>Transferwise_CHF   <--  Transferwise (GBP)   # This is the
>>funding part of the transaction.
>>Expense/cafe   <--  Transferwise_CHF # Here I'm tracking
>>the actual expense.
>> 
>> Gnucash asks me for some exchange rates, and I answer for the CHF - GBP
>> part with the specific numbers provided by Transferwise and for the GBP
>> - EUR part with the exchange rate I've downloaded for that date.
>> 
>> I expect to see this in the account Transferwise_CHF
>> 
>>5.70   <--  5.70   # This is the funding part of the transaction.
>>5.70   <--  5.70   # Here I'm tracking the actual expense.
>> 
>> and this in the Transferwise (GBP) account
>> 
>>4.67   <--  4.67   # This is the funding part of the transaction.
>>4.67   <--  4.67   # Here I'm tracking the actual expense.
>> 
>> and something similar looking at the splits in the (euro-denominated
>> expense account).
>> 
>> But what I see (from the perspective of the CHF account) is this, which
>> makes no sense to me:
>> 
>> Gnucash has entered the 2.80, and deleting that split just makes it pop
>> up again.  Something is terribly wrong if any  account's view of the
>> transaction doesn't balance.  (This is gnucash 3.4, ubuntu, build id
>> 3.4+ (2018-12-30).
>> 
>> Is this my error or a bug in gnucash?  Any pointers?
>> 
>> 
>> Somewhat related, I thought to import historical currencies, as I'm back
>> filling some data for analysis purposes.  I grabbed 10 years of daily
>> quotes and imported them (3600 or so rows of data per currency).  All ok
>> for GBP - EUR.  When I do the same for CHF - EUR, gnucash says it's done
>> it, but the price database doesn't show more than a handful.  When I do
>> it for JPY - EUR, gnucash says it's done but the price editor shows none
>> of them.  The proposed exchange rates when entering transactions are
>> consistent with what the price editor thinks it knows.
>> 
>> Is there a limit on FX rates?  (This is about 4000, which doesn't strike
>> me as terribly large.)
>> 
> -- 
> 
> Jeff Abrahamson
> +33 6 24 40 01 57
> +44 7920 594 255
> 
> http://p27.eu/jeff/
> http://transport-nantes.com/
> 
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To update your s

Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Jeff Abrahamson]

On 15/08/2019 18:55, John Ralls wrote:
>> On Aug 15, 2019, at 7:38 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
>>
>> Somewhat related, I thought to import historical currencies, as I'm back
>> filling some data for analysis purposes.  I grabbed 10 years of daily
>> quotes and imported them (3600 or so rows of data per currency).  All ok
>> for GBP - EUR.  When I do the same for CHF - EUR, gnucash says it's done
>> it, but the price database doesn't show more than a handful.  When I do
>> it for JPY - EUR, gnucash says it's done but the price editor shows none
>> of them.  The proposed exchange rates when entering transactions are
>> consistent with what the price editor thinks it knows.
>>
>> Is there a limit on FX rates?  (This is about 4000, which doesn't strike
>> me as terribly large.)
> Did you look at both both directions in the price db?
>
> Between versions 2.6.8 and 3.5 GnuCash inverted quotes < 1.0 because of a 
> mis-begotten rounding scheme in 2.6 that truncated at 6 decimal places. The 
> rounding was fixed in 3.0 but the reversal wasn't removed until Mike 
> Alexander noticed it when working on a bug last spring.
>
> Aside from a few days in January 2015 the CHF has traded at less than 1 EUR 
> and the JPY of course always trade that way, so most of the CHF rates and all 
> of the JPY rates should show up under EUR.

I did look in both directions.  Under euro there were no exchange rates
listed in the price database.

I'll play with it a bit more and see what I can find.

-- 

Jeff Abrahamson
+33 6 24 40 01 57
+44 7920 594 255

http://p27.eu/jeff/
http://transport-nantes.com/

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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[John Ralls]

> On Aug 15, 2019, at 7:38 AM, Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
> 
> Somewhat related, I thought to import historical currencies, as I'm back
> filling some data for analysis purposes.  I grabbed 10 years of daily
> quotes and imported them (3600 or so rows of data per currency).  All ok
> for GBP - EUR.  When I do the same for CHF - EUR, gnucash says it's done
> it, but the price database doesn't show more than a handful.  When I do
> it for JPY - EUR, gnucash says it's done but the price editor shows none
> of them.  The proposed exchange rates when entering transactions are
> consistent with what the price editor thinks it knows.
> 
> Is there a limit on FX rates?  (This is about 4000, which doesn't strike
> me as terribly large.)

Did you look at both both directions in the price db?

Between versions 2.6.8 and 3.5 GnuCash inverted quotes < 1.0 because of a 
mis-begotten rounding scheme in 2.6 that truncated at 6 decimal places. The 
rounding was fixed in 3.0 but the reversal wasn't removed until Mike Alexander 
noticed it when working on a bug last spring.

Aside from a few days in January 2015 the CHF has traded at less than 1 EUR and 
the JPY of course always trade that way, so most of the CHF rates and all of 
the JPY rates should show up under EUR.

Regards,
John Ralls

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Re: [GNC] multiple currencies in one transaction

[Jeff Abrahamson]

Apparently the mailing list strips images, even very tiny ones.

The first image simply showed Transferwise associating 5.70 CFH = 4.67 GBP.

The second showed that gnucash is creating a correcting split in the
transaction I'd entered:

512452_Transferwise CHF    5.70
6212_cafe  5.70
512452_Transferwise CHF    5.70
51245_Transferwise 5.70
   2.80

And that 2.80 is rather odd.

Jeff Abrahamson


On 15/08/2019 16:38, Jeff Abrahamson wrote:
> I purchased a coffee in Switzerland using my GBP-based Transferwise
> card.  That card could hold a CHF balance, but on that day it held only
> GBP.  My local currency is EUR.  So I can think of my coffee purchase as
> two FX transactions: funding (GBP -> CHF) and an expense (CHF -> EUR).
>
> What Transferwise tells me is the amount of the purchase and the amount
> of the transaction.  (I can also poke further and find the exchange rate
> they used and the minuscule fee, but the important point to me is the
> the two endpoints.)
>
> Now what makes sense to me based on reading about accounting principles
> for multiple currencies is that I should make one transaction thus:
>
> Coffee (CHF)   <--  Bank (GBP)    # This is the funding part of
> the transaction.
> Expense acct   <--  Coffee (CHF)  # Here I'm tracking the actual
> expense.
>
> I put those in a single transaction for easier understanding later. 
> Here I've created a bank account for Transferwise (GBP) as well as
> subaccounts of that called Transferwise_CHF and some others, denominated
> in the indicated currencies.  Those three accounts are transfer
> accounts: I usually expect them to have zero balance.
>
> Transferwise_CHF   <--  Transferwise (GBP)   # This is the
> funding part of the transaction.
> Expense/cafe       <--  Transferwise_CHF     # Here I'm tracking
> the actual expense.
>
> Gnucash asks me for some exchange rates, and I answer for the CHF - GBP
> part with the specific numbers provided by Transferwise and for the GBP
> - EUR part with the exchange rate I've downloaded for that date.
>
> I expect to see this in the account Transferwise_CHF
>
> 5.70   <--  5.70   # This is the funding part of the transaction.
> 5.70   <--  5.70   # Here I'm tracking the actual expense.
>
> and this in the Transferwise (GBP) account
>
> 4.67   <--  4.67   # This is the funding part of the transaction.
> 4.67   <--  4.67   # Here I'm tracking the actual expense.
>
> and something similar looking at the splits in the (euro-denominated
> expense account).
>
> But what I see (from the perspective of the CHF account) is this, which
> makes no sense to me:
>
> Gnucash has entered the 2.80, and deleting that split just makes it pop
> up again.  Something is terribly wrong if any  account's view of the
> transaction doesn't balance.  (This is gnucash 3.4, ubuntu, build id
> 3.4+ (2018-12-30).
>
> Is this my error or a bug in gnucash?  Any pointers?
>
>
> Somewhat related, I thought to import historical currencies, as I'm back
> filling some data for analysis purposes.  I grabbed 10 years of daily
> quotes and imported them (3600 or so rows of data per currency).  All ok
> for GBP - EUR.  When I do the same for CHF - EUR, gnucash says it's done
> it, but the price database doesn't show more than a handful.  When I do
> it for JPY - EUR, gnucash says it's done but the price editor shows none
> of them.  The proposed exchange rates when entering transactions are
> consistent with what the price editor thinks it knows.
>
> Is there a limit on FX rates?  (This is about 4000, which doesn't strike
> me as terribly large.)
>
-- 

Jeff Abrahamson
+33 6 24 40 01 57
+44 7920 594 255

http://p27.eu/jeff/
http://transport-nantes.com/

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