Foreign trip expenses
From https://www.reddit.com/r/plaintextaccounting/comments/9r9cfj/beancount_price_and_cost :
- Before going to vacation to Europe, I borrowed 350 EUR, cash.
- I also took out of ATM 200 EUR, cash - now I know the price.
- I spent 500 EUR in trip, and I have 50 left.
- Now, after the trip, I exchanged some of my home currency to 300 EUR to give it back - and it's the different price from step two. So how do I write all this down?
My attempt follows. Notes:
- When transactions occur on such trips, I sometimes know the USD amount spent, and sometimes the EUR amount. I sometimes know the total converted amount, and sometimes the conversion rate. I record whichever of these is more convenient.
- After the trip, when reviewing expenses, I'll add a P market price directive covering the period of the trip, and use -V to see all expenses in home currency (USD).
; a hledger example based on colindean's
; hledger doesn't currently support the {} syntax, just @ or @@
2018-10-25 * vacation loan
Liabilities:Loans:Vacation
Assets:Cash 350 EUR
2018-10-26 * ATM withdrawal
Assets:Cash 200 EUR @@ 220 USD ; conversion price written out for clarity; redundant due to -225 USD below
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion 5 USD
Assets:Bank -225 USD
2018-10-27 * food
Assets:Cash -190 EUR
Expenses:Vacation:Food
2018-10-27 * hotel
Assets:Cash -310 EUR = 50 EUR ; assert that Cash's EUR balance is now 50
Expenses:Vacation:Hotel
2018-10-28 * withdraw more euros to repay loan
Assets:Cash 300 EUR @@ 360 USD ; conversion rate has gone up to 1.20
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion 5 USD
Assets:Bank -365 USD
2018-10-28 * repay vacation loan
Liabilities:Loans:Vacation 350 EUR = 0 EUR ; assert that euro loan is repaid
Assets:Cash
; Conversion rate to use in reports for the trip period.
; You could declare each time it changed, eg:
; P 2018-10-25 EUR 1.10 USD
; P 2018-10-28 EUR 1.20 USD
; but hledger currently picks just one,
; and for expense reporting a rough average price is usually fine:
P 2018-10-25 EUR 1.15 USD
Here are a few different reports, for comparison:
Simple balance change report for all accounts. --flat and -Y help ensure a readable tabular layout here.
$ hledger bal --flat -Y
Balance changes in 2018:
|| 2018
==================================++======================
Assets:Bank || -590.00 USD
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion || 10.00 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Food || 190 EUR
Expenses:Vacation:Hotel || 310 EUR
----------------------------------++----------------------
|| 500 EUR, -580.00 USD
Adding the -B/--cost flag converts transaction amounts to the other commodity in the transaction, using the conversion rate specified in the transaction if any. This typically helps collapse the grand total to one commodity, so we can see it is zero here (expected, since we're showing all accounts).
$ hledger bal --flat -Y -B
Balance changes in 2018:
|| 2018
==================================++======================
Assets:Bank || -590.00 USD
Assets:Cash || -500 EUR, 580.00 USD
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion || 10.00 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Food || 190 EUR
Expenses:Vacation:Hotel || 310 EUR
----------------------------------++----------------------
|| 0
Adding the -V/--value flag instead converts report amounts using the market price effective on the reporting date (hledger prices and date can help identify that). The grand total of -5 USD here corresponds to our capital loss due to change in exchange rate (the price of a euro went from $1.10 to $1.20 while we still owed some):
$ hledger prices
P 2018-10-25 EUR 1.15 USD
$ date
Fri Oct 26 15:03:00 PDT 2018
$ hledger bal --flat -Y -V
Balance changes in 2018:
|| 2018
==================================++=============
Assets:Bank || -590.00 USD
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion || 10.00 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Food || 218.50 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Hotel || 356.50 USD
----------------------------------++-------------
|| -5.00 USD
The "exp" account query is added to show just the expenses. Now we can see their total.
$ hledger bal --flat -Y -V exp
Balance changes in 2018:
|| 2018
==================================++============
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion || 10.00 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Food || 218.50 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Hotel || 356.50 USD
----------------------------------++------------
|| 585.00 USD
Or you might use the is/incomestatement command which is specialised for income/expense reporting. It's tabular and flat by default.
$ hledger is -V
Income Statement 2018/10/25-2018/10/28
|| 2018/10/25-2018/10/28
==================================++=======================
Revenues ||
----------------------------------++-----------------------
----------------------------------++-----------------------
||
==================================++=======================
Expenses ||
----------------------------------++-----------------------
Expenses:Fees:CurrencyConversion || 10.00 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Food || 218.50 USD
Expenses:Vacation:Hotel || 356.50 USD
----------------------------------++-----------------------
|| 585.00 USD
==================================++=======================
Net: || -585.00 USD