Hello. I'm new to accounting, ledger and this mailing list :-) So far I'm
finding it all fascinating! Thank you very much for such a great piece of
software. Like many people, I tried out GnuCash and would have stuck with
it except that a friend suggested that I try Ledger. I am now convinced
that CLI accounting is the only sane way of doing it.
Anyway, I ran into a problem that I think might be a bug/feature deficiency
in Ledger. First I will describe something that works currently and then
modify it to show my problem. I am using the example of buying and selling
houses in Peter Slinger's tutorial on currency trading accounts.
01/01 Opening Balance
Assets:CAD CAD 500000
Capital
02/01 Buy House A
Assets:HOU HOU 1 @ CAD 100000
Assets:CAD
03/01 Buy House B
Assets:HOU HOU 1 @ CAD 120000
Assets:CAD
As you can see, I start with $500,000 and buy one house for $100,000 and
the other for $120,000. I can sell the house and realize the capital gains
with:
05/01 Sell House A
Assets:HOU -HOU 1
Assets:CAD CAD 105000
Income:Gains -CAD 5000
I was impressed that Ledger even figures out the cost of the house and
removes the correct lot price when I inspect the balance with
--lot-prices! So far so good.
But let's say that someone wants to buy my house for USD. Ideally I would
like this to work
05/01 Sell House A
Assets:HOU -HOU 1
Assets:CAD USD 100000 @ CAD 1.05
Income:Gains -CAD 5000
Unfortunately, this does not balance. Even the following does not balance:
05/01 Sell House A
Assets:HOU -HOU 1 {CAD 100000}
Assets:CAD USD 100000 @ CAD 1.05
Income:Gains -CAD 5000
The only thing that appears to work is:
05/01 Sell House A
Assets:HOU -HOU 1 {CAD 100000} @@ USD 100000
Assets:CAD USD 100000 @ CAD 1.05
Income:Gains -CAD 5000
(at which point you can let Ledger calculate the Income:Gains).
I'm guessing this is a bug. I often have to deal with multiple currencies
and I have to buy one with the other. For example, my main currency is
JPY, but I have CAD, GBP and EUR and will buy GBP with CAD or EUR with GBP,
for example. As I am new to accounting, it's very possible I am
misunderstanding how I should calculate capital gains. Does anyone one
else do this?
Mike
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