Hi!

I'm using KMymoney to try to keep track of my personal finances. Now I have accounts in banks in different countries, with different currencies. What I do is that I manually import lists of transactions from my accounts into Kmymoney. Then they all appear in reports and the like. However, I am quite uncertain how the issue of different currencies are treated. For instance, if there are transactions categorized in the same way, say "transport", in the report on costs, how are the different currencies treated here? Is the items in foreign currency transformed into the same currency as the other accounts, or are the sums simply added?

(I do hope this makes sense)

Best,

Magnus

The answer is not a simple yes or no. As usual, it depends A bit of background and up-front a "No, they are not simply added":

Inside KMyMoney the categories are treated like accounts which makes a few things very easy. Each such account is denominated in a specific currency that is assigned when the account is created. Once the account is referenced by a transaction one cannot change this currency assignment anymore.

Each transaction is made up of (at least one, but usually) multiple splits. In the following, I make use of a simple transaction which has two splits for simplicity but things apply to split transactions (more than two splits) alike.

Each split has a reference to an account (category) and an amount field that keeps the amount in the referenced account's currency. Each transaction also references a common currency (it does not matter which one and usually the one of the account where the transaction was entered/imported is used for that purpose). To make use of that transaction currency, each split also carries a value field which is denominated in this transaction currency no matter which currency the account is denominated in. The accounting principle requires that the sum of all those values must be zero for a transaction to be balanced.

In case all the account currencies are the same there is no difference in the values stored in the amount and value field of each split. Things get tricky, when one account is denominated in one currency and the other side (e.g. category) is denominated in another one. The amount field still keeps the amount in the currency of the account, but the value now differs for (at least) one split from the amount field. The ratio of value and amount is called price or exchange rate.

Once it comes to reporting, the reporting engine can be instructed to represent all values in your base currency. You can change the base currency at any time but usually there is no need to do so. This happens on an account basis.

With this in mind, you have two choices.

1. Account in foreign currency, category in base currency
2. Account in foreign currency, second category in foreign currency

Which one is best, I don't know and it depends on your personal situation.

For option 1. you need to provide the price information for each transaction. When entering transaction manually, KMyMoney will open a respective dialog and suggests the last known price for the two currencies used. You can adjust the price for the transaction (amount/value) and it will be entered using these values. I am not sure how this works when importing transactions.

For option 2. you need to provide the price information at report time and won't be bothered during entry/import.

The views
The accounts and categories view contain two columns called Total Balance and Total Value (they could be hidden, in case you don't see one or both). If the account's currency is identical to the base currency, the Total Balance column is empty and only the Total Value is shown (KMyMoney version 5.0+). The Total Balance shows the sum of the amount field of all splits referencing the account, the Total Value column shows the respective value in the base currency.

BTW: your entry perfectly makes sense. Now I do hope that mine makes sense to you as well

Hi!

Thanks! Yes, it makes a lot of sense, despite the quite confusing fact that my system language is Swedish, so I have to interpret the terms....

Two question more: you say that in the account view, there should be two columns, Total value and Total Balance. I can only see what I take to be the Total Balance (that is, balance in the foreign currency). How do I make the Total Value visible?

And: I can now see that in the reports, the foreign currency is exchanged to my base currency. But how and where do I set the exchange rate?

Magnus

magnusl wrote:Thanks! Yes, it makes a lot of sense, despite the quite confusing fact that my system language is Swedish, so I have to interpret the terms....

You don't want me to write in Swedish

magnusl wrote:Two question more: you say that in the account view, there should be two columns, Total value and Total Balance. I can only see what I take to be the Total Balance (that is, balance in the foreign currency). How do I make the Total Value visible?

Right click on the header and add the column.

magnusl wrote:And: I can now see that in the reports, the foreign currency is exchanged to my base currency. But how and where do I set the exchange rate?

Use Tools/Prices for that. The manual should provide answers also.