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Yet another Foreign Currency Account question

General questions about using Fund Manager that do not fit into any other forum.

Postby ajryounger » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:46 pm

After puzzling from time to time about why I couldn't quite reconcile my IB Canada account (it seemed chronically to be out about $5k) I finally traced the problem to a foolish error (or a mistaken implementation of what is explained in the Multi-currency tutorial, who knows).

I think I know how I should fix it, but thought I had better ask before I make things worse.

Here is the situation:

I have an account at IB Canada that is used strictly for running my USD portfolio.

The account was initially funded with CAD. But that was all immediately flipped to USD in one transaction.

In FM:
1. All securities are set to USD and purchases/sales recorded in USD

2. in Options\Currency Settings: default currency = CAD and Currency 24: USD is set to USDCAD inverted.

3. The Cash account is set to CAD however (I think this is the problem)

4. Everything works fine from an accounting perspective

5. There is a trivial unconverted CAD cash deficit in the account that just reflects accumulated account charges

6. Circumstantially, there are a couple of sub-portfolios in the account (each running a different strategy). They both hit the single Cash account.

The problem is that, set up this way the Cash account is always reported (and charted) in CAD whatever the "Exchange-rate adjusted" setting.

I am beginning to think that I really ought to reset the Cash account to USD and rebuild it. That way it would report correctly in either currency just like the various securities positions.

I could set up a self-standing 'Residual Cash' account in CAD just to hold the small amount of CAD.

I presume that I could go into Properties on the Cash Account, flip it to CAD, reset the starting amount to the USD amount that resulted from the initial FX transaction and rebuild.

Would I be correct in doing that, or would I break things in some horrible way?

Thanks for any advice! I don't know why it took me so long to sort this out.

sincerely

ay
ajryounger
 
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Postby Mark » Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:02 pm

Hi ay,

If you are funding the USD purchases with USD cash, then yes, your cash account should be in USD. All transactions should be recorded in whatever the assigned currency is for that investment, including cash investments. So, if you bought $5,000 worth of some USD stock you should have a sell of $5,000 In your USD cash.

If you have been recording it this way, but your cash was assigned to the wrong currency you can simply change the assigned currency.
Thanks,
Mark
Fund Manager - Portfolio Management Software
Mark
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Postby ajryounger » Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:03 am

Mark,
Thanks for the advice! I will try that today (after a backup!).

best regards
ay
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Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2017 11:10 am


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