GnuCash support for alternative/non-ISO currencies

[bitcoinsrule]

Just a tip, whenever I exchange some USD into BTC, I do something like
Assets:BTCWallet  ฿20 @@ $384

What keystroke do you use to get "฿"?

I google searched for Thai Baht, and copy/pasted the character. Sorry 

No worries.

[zhangweiwu]

Well, if the GnuCash developers decide to do so, and I doubt they will, they won't take my route. I had to modify a system file, iso_4217.xml, after all. Furthermore, it works by pretending that the target non-ISO4217 currencies do qualify as ISO4217. That just strikes me as an undignified kludge.

They did it before. XAU (for gold) and XAG (for silver) are in iso_4217.xml, which are not part of iso_4217.

[zhangweiwu]

"Make it easier for users to work with alternative/non-ISO/private currencies. (http://uservoice.com/a/35yKe)"

Folks, I made the above suggestion to the GnuCash developers to include better support for currencies that do not meet ISO requirements, like the bitcoin. I hope you'll all up vote it.

It's being discussed in an onerous discussion here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=130920

Before they decide to take any action, you may try to use these currency codes of gnucash to denote BTC:

-  XXX (unknown currency)
-  XTS (currency for testing purpose)
-  XPT (Platinum)

So, when they rolled out the real BTC support you can then update your ledger to use it. -- do a search-and-replace of your ledger file (*.gnucash)

There is nothing to do with ISO requirements. Developers do things at their will and update the system following engineering needs, not user requirements. Otherwise how do you explain XTS is not removed in the final release? Users don't have a stake there, in opensource developers rules, the quality is maintained by the fact that most developers happen to be also users. More often than not, if you managed to contributed 50% code, you have to insist on really really bad mistakes in order that other people consider forking your project, and before that you rule like a king. -> this paragraph is not a complaint, just a general description.

[zhangweiwu]

I use XXX as a place holder for mBTC, the reason why I don't use BTC, but mBTC, is because gnucash can't handle more than 4-digits after decimal point: it automatically change the number, hinders a user to balance in a split transaction. It won't work even if you configure precision to more than 4-digits after decimal.

I know I just replied a post 120 days old, but this is how long it took me to determine to book-keeping my BTC transactions.

[EskimoBob]

I gave up on doing accounting in LTC or BTC and moved everything to EUR while cryptocoins are held/accounted as investments - like stock. Problem solved!
It is completely pointless to use LTC or BTC because of absurdly high volatility and 99.999% of good (or equipment, materials, what ever) you buy or sell, are still fiat based even if you quote it in any of the cryptocoins.

[Sukrim]

I just use ledger-cli instead of GnuCash (which is slightly overkill for my taste anyways in some areas) for accounting, it still would be interesting to have at least a fork/patch available to extend precision to 8 digits + allow adding new currency abbreviations to be manually added.

[zhangweiwu]

I just use ledger-cli instead of GnuCash to have precision to 8 digits.

Maybe you can try to save GNUCash ledger onto MySQL database instead of text file and see if precision improves. It can happen that the devs stored numeric as string to simplify adaptation (toSQL), in which case there be no improvement on precision.

ledger-cli makes it difficult to assign the task to an accountant. all successful investors ends up hiring an accountant - since you invest in Bitcoin, chances are you will be successful and will hire an accoutant, and end up either switching away from ledger-cli or so rich that you hire an accountant who were trained in Unix too:)

[mistercoin]

Upvoted. Very nice indeed my friend.

[Sukrim]

ledger-cli makes it difficult to assign the task to an accountant. all successful investors ends up hiring an accountant - since you invest in Bitcoin, chances are you will be successful and will hire an accoutant, and end up either switching away from ledger-cli or so rich that you hire an accountant who were trained in Unix too:)

I'd rather do my accounting automatically and have an accountant assisting me with the layout of transactions etc. - with (nearly) all transactions available in machine-readable formats anyways, there is no real need to hire someone to enter numbers into a ledger manually.

[Tuxavant]

I have no idea why this just occurred to me, but GNUCash seems to work perfectly well when using bitcoin's bit/ubit denomination.