wish: multiple currency accounting

[sasha]

Hi Maxim,

I have been using HomeBank for a long time. There is one feature I would like to have which doesn't allow me to keep all my accounts in HomeBank. The issue is that I have multiple accounts in different currencies: Rubles, Euros and Dollars. HomeBank is designed to keep accounts only in single currency and it doesn't allow me to keep all my accounts in a one place.

It would be good to implement currency option in Manage Accounts window, to implement display format for different currencies at the Preferences. The implementation of currency ratios when doing single currency reporting is also necessary. Currency ratios may be manually configured by the user or let users to have currency ratios from Internet (e.g. Google).

Please vote for my wish and add comments if this feature could be useful for you.

[sasha (sasha123-deactivatedaccount)]

Would be nice to have "default currency" option to see total amount in a one default currency at the Accounts summary panel. This feature could be useful for single currency reporting.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

Currency is in good place in my todolist.

[sasha (sasha123-deactivatedaccount)]

Here is some design of rate option while doing internal transaction. The rate goes from default options (fixed ratio or rate from on-line service), but it's possible to change rate manually because banks have their own rates and change them daily.

[seraphym (seraphym)]

I would be happy if I could simply specify the currency used for each account.

[Fabio Puddu (fabius)]

Implementing this feature would result in a great advance for me!

[ValentinV (valentinverde)]

This is defenetly a must have when you live in countries with not mainstream currency

[bobzr (bobzr)]

Just waiting for multiple currency support to switch to HomaBank!
Thanks

[Marco Albasio (hellua2000)]

Multiple currencies will be very useful. Will we be able to upgrade current accounts to change currency?

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

The current account have not really a currency, so you will be able to assign a currency to it.
But there will be no conversion (i mean an account with a transaction amount of 24.54 will stay 24.54).
Is that what you were thinking about?

[niere (glowball)]

I think it would be best to be able to assign a "standard" currency to an account, as well as a currency/conversion rate for each transaction (that might change with each transaction, since currency rates are very dynamic). This conversion rate is then used to "normalize" transactions into the base (or "view~"?) currency. It's only getting ugly when you change the standard currency of an account, since then each transaction's conversion rate must be changed accordingly, but I think you don't have to change the standard currency of an account often if at all.

Did that sound reasonably or in any way how any of the other affected users might like it? That's at least how I'd like it :)

[seraphym (seraphym)]

@niere
what are you talking about? for me, I just need to be able to specify exactly which currency every account uses. Since I have multiple accounts (both bank, and cash) in different currencies. There's no need for any conversion whatsoever, they're separate accounts and that's it. If I do convert some money I can withdraw from one, convert and put it on another account, no problem.

[papukaija (papukaija)]

I think that the balance report would still need some conversion, otherwise you'll have different balances in different currencies. That's not very useful if you want to quickly know how much you own without doing the conversion by your calculator.

[seraphym (seraphym)]

@papukaija
While I agree that it would be useful for a lot of people, I'd prefer this function to be optional. Personally I don't need any conversion, there's no need to an abstract "whole summ" number for me - knowing exactly how much of each currency I have is much better (real) for practical use. Also my home currency is not stable enough to actually use conversion, today the Total will be one number and [without any transactions] tomorrow it will be a different number, it doesn't make much sense to me. I'd prefer an option to have acounts in different currencies strictly separate.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

As a summary here is what I will be possible:

- manage active currency among all existing ones (including rate, and maybe display option based on culture)
- assign a base currency for the wallet
- assign a currency to each account

the base currency will be used for report that covers various account with different currencies
and probably as a toggle option to display account summary (in native or base currency)

[eld1e6o (eld1e6o)]

I'm waiting for this funcionality, It will be great, I think it as a need!

[Dzh (dzhuneyt)]

Any update on the progress? This would be a great addition to such wonderful software.

[Ou Topos (outopos)]

How is it going with this bug/wish? Any update?

Thanks for developing Homebank!

[Gabriel A. Zorrilla (gaz082)]

Ohh, this is a goodie! When will 5.1 be released? Looking forward multiple currencies support!

Thanks!

[pawciosc (pawciosc)]

It is not good news... multiple currencies is necessary and expected functionality ... :(

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

made the total:
- base currency
- each account can have a separate currency
- manage currency dialog
- preset of 182 iso 4217 currency
- online exchange rate update (yahoo)
- report are displayed into native currency when possible, into base currency otherwise

[LeTic (letic)]

Hey Maxime,

Fantastic news ! I would like to help you test the feature but I cannot find your commits in Launchpad.

Did you commit to a local repository perhaps ?

I'd gladly help you test this feature to move away from Grisbi.

Thanks in advance
LeTic

[Eric Davelaar (eric-davelaar)]

Hi Maxime,
Great news!
Looking forward to the version to be released.

Happy New Year

[S² (marsou75)]

Hi Maxime,

Thanks, this is excellent!

Rufus
On 3 Jan 2016 11:20 pm, "Eric Davelaar" <email address hidden> wrote:

> Hi Maxime,
> Great news!
> Looking forward to the version to be released.
>
> Happy New Year
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/552565
>
> Title:
> wish: multiple currency accounting
>
> Status in HomeBank:
> Fix Committed
> Status in Baltix:
> Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> Hi Maxim,
>
> I have been using HomeBank for a long time. There is one feature I
> would like to have which doesn't allow me to keep all my accounts in
> HomeBank. The issue is that I have multiple accounts in different
> currencies: Rubles, Euros and Dollars. HomeBank is designed to keep
> accounts only in single currency and it doesn't allow me to keep all
> my accounts in a one place.
>
> It would be good to implement currency option in Manage Accounts
> window, to implement display format for different currencies at the
> Preferences. The implementation of currency ratios when doing single
> currency reporting is also necessary. Currency ratios may be manually
> configured by the user or let users to have currency ratios from
> Internet (e.g. Google).
>
> Please vote for my wish and add comments if this feature could be
> useful for you.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/homebank/+bug/552565/+subscriptions
>

[Fab Mar (paradox-code7)]

Hello,

This is a fantastic program, but I just started using it, and I am missing this feature. When can we expect the next release?

Thank you.

Fab

[LeTic (letic)]

Hey Maxime,

Would it be possible to test the code? I still see no updates to the public repository.

I would like to help test this before it gets release.

Thanks !
LeTic

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

Don't worry a beta source code will be released soon

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

Branch 5.1.x and source code BETA is available.

This is still experimental and will requires some fix for sure.
Any "Fix committed" bug as for now is into there as well (changelog list it)
Documentation and translation were not updated at all.

This is for testing only, nothing stable for now, and file structure might still change before RC and final release !
You are warned ;-)

[Carlos Estrada (chemnic)]

I'm testing the BETA. How do I make internal transfers between two accounts of different currencies?

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

You can't internal xfer implies share the same amount, so implies the same currency
use normal transfer for that

[LeTic (letic)]

Hey Maxime,

I tested the functionality as well but do not understand how this is supposed to work in Homebank.

Attached is a screenshot of what I did in Homebank.

My workflow is simple :
 - I have 2 accounts in two separate currencies (EUR and CHF)
 - I am trying to transfer money from the CHF account to the EUR one

In homebank I entered a transfer of CHF 1000 (as internal transfer does not allow to select the destination account) on the CHF account and selected the EUR account. The EUR account is credited with 1000 € and the CHF account is not debited. Even after setting an exchange rate in the currency management.

In Grisbi when entering a transaction you can select the currency of the payment. If it is different from the account's it will ask you to enter the exchange rate (or even simpler the amount in the account's currency). Then both account will be debited/credited with the amount in its own currency.

Sorry I was unable to do this with homebank. I am probably doing it wrong ? Already the fact that currencies exchange rates are fixed in the manage currency windows won't probably work for the above workflow as exchange rates fluctuates constantly.

If needed I can provide more information on how it is done in Grisbi.

Hope the feedback is helpful.
Cheers
LeTic

[Carlos Estrada (chemnic)]

That is exactly what I tried to ask, but better explained by @letic.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

@LetiC & Carlos:
Ok I have grisbi and have a look, one question: does the 2 account are hold at the same financial institution (bank) ?

[LeTic (letic)]

Hey Maxime,

Not necessarily. I used to have a cross-border worker account in a French bank where you'd have both a CHF and a EUR account, but now I have one in 2 different institutions.

Another simpler workflow for mutli-currencies is when you travel and pay in a foreign currency you might want to put the amount in the foreign currency in your account with the exchange rate for that transaction. It can be cleaner when reconciling your accounts.

I'll try to make you a quick Grisbi test file if it can help.

Do not hesitate to contact me back if you have any questions.
Thanks a lot for your work !
LeTic

[LeTic (letic)]

Hey Maxim,

Here is a simple Grisbi account test file with 2 different currencies bank accounts.

As you can see I made a 2000€ transfer from the CHF bank account to the EUR one. When you enter the currency it will automatically ask for the exchange rate. In that window you can also input the amount in CHF which calculates automatically the exchange rate. This is quite handy.

Also I made a simple transaction in another currency so you can see how it is handled.

The gsb file attached is a simple XML db so you can have a look in it quite easily.

Hope this help
LeTic

[Rafael P. (rafael-p)]

Very sad to see this feature has been requested more than 6 years ago and the milestone keeps is always postponed !
To me it is an essential feature, especially considering that the competitor apps all have it...If it is available in a Beta version, I'd be happy to test it and maybe help push the feature as soon as possible. By the way, I noticed there is a Moneybank Beta PPA (https://launchpad.net/~mdoyen/+archive/ubuntu/homebank-beta), but it would be nice if it were up to date so that the community could give a hand in testing it.
Please Maxime, give some news about the development of the multiple currency feature, and if tell us how we can help !

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

@LetiC & Carlos: please open a new wish bug, as I don't want to postpone the release of this first step into multiple currency support once again, but want to stabilize and release what have been done, so this new xfer wish be studied later.

@Rafael P.: Remember HomeBank is free and I code it in my spare time, so yes it can takes years for features to come, precisely when it require a complete refactoring and mostly rewrite the foundation of a software. I can ear it is essential to you and other, but I already said it: that feature is useless to a majority of users; that's to explain why it was postponed since a long time. The fact some others tools have it is not a point, as I do not compete, my intend is to provide a tool useful for free to most people.
Anyway this is coded now and just requires to be stabilized and non regressed tested, which requires some time I may not have for now.

So far I did not get any feedback, so 2 options:
- I did everything right, which I doubt: I'm human
- no one has really tested it

=> so please test !

[Rafael P. (rafael-p)]

Thank you Maxime. I understand your point and admire your dedication to this project.
Like many other users, I believe there could be a few additional features that would make Homebank an excellent alternative to other professional software. You could poll the users to see which one they would appreciate most, but I am sure multiple currencies would be among the top ones.
I would love to be a beta tester, but unless I am completely stupid, I didn't find a clear way to download and install the Beta version: could you explain how please?

And lastly, feel free to use the community to help you in the development effort, it would be a shame not to leverage this huge group of enthusiastic developers to help you :)

[Diego Garcia Gangl (dnicolas)]

Hi, first of all thanks for all the great work on Homebank!

I've testing multiple currencies and found an issue with the way the grand total is calculated in the accounts panel.

I have set my base currency to be USD, and ARS (Argentine peso) as an extra currency.
I used the "online update" button and it correctly grabbed the exchange rate: 1 USD = 14.7 ARS

I've set an account with US$ 50 and another one with AR$ 50. The grand total shows US$785. However AR$ 50 equals about US$3.4, so the grand total should be US$53.4 instead.

It looks like it's multiplying AR$ by 14.7 rather than diving. It also happens in the graphs.

On another note, do you have any plans to support bitcoin? It can be faked right now by using an ISO currency and customizing it. The only limitation is that the "frac digits" slider doesn't go up to 8. I understand you want to get it release, but could it be possible to add those extra digits so we can fake BTC for now?

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

multiply instead of divide is fixed into the code, to be include in next commit

[Rafael P. (rafael-p)]

Maxime, could you please tell if there is a compiled or non-compiled beta version available for testing, and how to install it? I could not figure out how to get 5.1.x....

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

@Raphael:
https://help.launchpad.net/Code/FindingAndDownloading

Anyway, I am close to release the RC.

[Maxime DOYEN (mdoyen)]

5.1 RC was just released

try it out: http://homebank.free.fr !

[Diego Garcia Gangl (dnicolas)]

Hey! Tried the RC and I can confirm that currencies are working fine for me. The grand total is calculated correctly now.

[TERGEIST Paul (paul-tergeist-666)]

Hi,

1st, thanks for the hard work on this RC.
I also confirm the grand total is calculated and displayed correctly.
But I also confirm that intern Xfer between accounts in different currencies are not made possible.
The GREAT feature would be to retrieve the rate at the day of the transaction to ensure two amounts are equal in two different currencies. Of course, it will imply to round numbers (6, 8 digits?).
Many broking software do like this to disply trade on different stock markets. Some of them make it possible to set for each transaction, an arbitrary change so maybe it would imply to add a variable in the intern Xfer transaction.
I know this is not an easy feature and it probably requires much coding. But once done, the multi currency would be fully supported and even tough I'm aware it concerns only a minority of users, it would add much value to Homebank.

Thanks again and good luck Maxime.