Correcting Payment amount

neil's Avatar

neil

Jun 09, 2010 @ 06:16 AM

I have an account set up with US$ as the base currency. I made some Euro entries into the account that I now need to go back and correct. BUT when I enter the new amount the program uses a different value.
Example I type in "3000 eur" enter it and the Transaction will show 3,773.70 and when I look at the entry it show that it is 2542.72 EUR (FYI the exchange rate shown is 0.6378)

The only way around this I have found is to delete the original transaction entry and make a new one, but this involves having to reenter all of the other data as well.
Can any one please explain what is happening and how I correct the problem.

  1. 1 Posted by ljb on Jun 09, 2010 @ 10:39 PM

    ljb's Avatar

    The behavior depends on the base currency of the other side of your transactions.

    If the other side (category or account) has a base in USD, and you want to enter or edit an amount using EUR, you type in "3000 EUR" - just like you said. MD immediately converts it to the account's base currency - USD - using the current exchange rate it has for that currency (Under Tools => Currencies/Exchange Rates) . The exchange rate is not shown in the register. The amount recorded in the transaction is now USD, the base currency for the account, and it no longer remembers anything about EURs.

    If the other side (category or account) has a base currency different from USD, it works a little differently. The exchange rate is shown in the transaction, but this is only used to convert the amount in the transaction into the amount for the other side. It is not used to convert an entry you make with a currency suffix. The current exchange rate (Tools => Currencies/Exchange Rates) is used for that.

    I think that might be the source of the confusion. If you enter "100 EUR" when creating or editing a transaction, it converts to USD using the current exchange rate for recording in your USD-based account. But then it converts back to EUR using the exchange rate in the transaction for recording in the other side's account. If the two exchange rates differ, you will get unexpected results.

    Does this sound right? I'm not really clear if this is what you are seeing, so let us know. By the way, I think there are complaints/bug reports about this behavior.

  2. 2 Posted by neil on Jun 14, 2010 @ 08:25 AM

    neil's Avatar

    On 10 Jun 2010, at 05:41, ljb wrote:

    > ljb Thank you for your assistance. I have checked back and you are
    > correct the problem is "If you enter "100 EUR" when creating or
    > editing a transaction, it converts to USD using the current exchange
    > rate for recording in your USD-based account. But then it converts
    > back to EUR using the exchange rate in the transaction for recording
    > in the other side's account. If the two exchange rates differ, you
    > will get unexpected results."

    Now I understand the problem I can live with it. But is there a way
    to get the "exchange rate in the transaction" and the "current" rate
    to be the same? Ideally to be the official exchange rate on the day
    the transaction is dated.

    Thanks again Neil

  3. 3 Posted by ljb on Jun 17, 2010 @ 01:52 AM

    ljb's Avatar

    I was going to suggest always entering or editing the transaction from the side with the correct currency. For example, you have a USD account and a EUR account. You want to move 100 EUR from usd-account to eur-account. If you enter "100 EUR" in the USD account register, with the category ("other side") set to eur-account, you will get the double conversion (with possibly different rates) I mentioned above.

    But if you enter it in from the eur-account side, you just enter "100" with category usd-account, and set the exchange rate in the transaction. This avoids the double conversion.

    Unfortunately, if you try this to edit an existing transaction, you can run up against some 'unexpected behavior' (bugs?). The exchange rate automatically resets to the current rate, and also it makes you enter the reciprocal of the rate. (This happens if you edit an cross-currency transaction from the side other than where it was entered.)

  4. Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on Jul 24, 2011 @ 07:54 PM.

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