Hello, folks:
A new multi-currency scheduled transaction in my Gnucash book just
occurred for the first time. It was confusing. I would like help
understanding what was going on, and pointers to where the relevant
documentation and/or source code are. I suspect this may turn into a bug
report, or more detail on a wiki page, or both.
I just set up a multi-currency subscription: buy a service in US dollars
(USD), pay with a Canadian dollars (CAD) credit card. This has the
complication that each month the CAD amount charged will vary with the
USD-CAD exchange rate. The USD amounts are fixed.
I entered a transaction in GnuCash to record the first payment. This
transaction divided the amount among three Expense accounts: two USD,
and one CAD. For a few payments, I duplicated the previous month's
transaction in the credit card ledger. Before this month's payment, I
turned last month's transaction into a scheduled transaction. The
template transaction has six splits: one split to the CAD credit card
Liability account, two splits to USD Expense accounts, one split to a
CAD Expense account, and splits to Trading:CURRENCY:CAD and to
Trading:CURRENCY:USD.
Today, I started GnuCash, and the scheduled transaction ran for the
first time. In the Since Last Run dialogue, there was an entry for this
transaction, with a line saying something like:
CAD -> USD [(Give value)]
where "[(Give value)]" is a text entry box. (The line might have been
"USD -> CAD", and the wording might have been different; I didn't
capture a screenshot.) I tried typing in various numbers into the text
entry box, and clicking OK for the Since Last Run dialogue. The numbers
appeared to be discarded each time. I tried typing in the transaction
value in USD, in CAD, an exchange rate of CAD per 1.00 USD. None of
these were accepted.
At one point, I typed in 1.00 to the text box, and I also reached past
the Since Last Run dialogue to open up Tools… Price Database…, and press
the Get Quotes button, so that Gnucash would have an exchange rate for
USD per 1 CAD. The Since Last Run dialogue disappeared, and the
transaction appeared in my ledgers as expected. I selected the CAD
Expense split and the CAD Liability credit card charge split, and used
Actions… Edit Exchange Rate to check the exchange rate. They were 1 CAD
= 1.00 USD.
This was enough to let me edit the transaction. I set the CAD Liability
credit card charge split to the correct CAD value, set the other CAD
Expense split to the correct value, and set the Exchange Rates to the
correct value. I'm comfortable with the per-month adjustments I had to
make to the new transaction.
What I would like to understand is: Why didn't the Scheduled Transaction
service simply duplicate the template transaction as a new transaction,
with the template transaction's existing per-split exchange rates? What
value was the Since Last Run dialogue asking me to enter: exchange rate?
Split amount? Why didn't the dialogue accept the values I was entering?
Why did it finally work? Did the Get Prices action supply the needed
value, or did the number I typed provide the value? What is the correct
way to enter a multi-currency scheduled transaction so that it gets
created smoothly each time?
Where in the code will I find the functionality that asked for this
value and created this transaction? I'm happy to read the code to learn
more. A few searches for keywords like "scheduled transaction", "give
value", "enter value", etc. returned search hits, but nothing that was
clearly the applicable code. I don't see this topic mentioned in the
Doxygen overviews
<https://code.gnucash.org/docs/MAINT/index.html#doxylist>.
I didn't see multi-currency issues mentioned in the Scheduled
Transaction sections of the Concept Guide
<https://lists.gnucash.org/docs/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html>, the
Manual <https://lists.gnucash.org/docs/C/gnucash-help/ch04s06.html>, or
the Wiki <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Scheduled_Transactions>. I
looked for Scheduled Transaction discussions involving multiple
currencies in the GnuCash-user list archives
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Scheduled_Transactions>. There must be
some threads there, but I didn't find them.
I am running GnuCash 3.10 on macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra. My book's
default currency is CAD. I am using currency trading accounts. I expect
to upgrade to GnuCash 4.1 soon. I didn't take detailed notes and screen
shots of the problem this time, but the transaction will recur next
month, and I can make the notes then. I intend to post an update to this
thread then.
Any suggestions of where to look in the meantime?
Thank you in advance,
—Jim DeLaHunt, software engineer, Vancouver, Canada
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