Many households keep part of their savings in gold and coins. An ordinary ledger has no place for that: it's either logged as an "expense", which is wrong, or not logged at all, and then "how much do I have?" has no good answer.
Gold is an asset, not an expense
When you buy two coins you haven't spent money; the form of your savings has changed, from a bank account to coins. If you log it as spending, your month looks bad for no reason and your net worth drops.
The better way is to record gold and coins as assets, and to treat the money leaving the account separately, as a transfer or the purchase of an asset.
Record the quantity, not the price
Record "2.5 Emami coins" or "80 g of 18k gold", not "110 million toman". Why? Because the price changes every day and the quantity doesn't. Write the quantity and the ledger works out the value with that day's rate; you only change the quantity when you buy or sell.
A few notes:
- Each kind of coin separately. Emami, Bahar Azadi, half and quarter coins have different rates; record each in its own unit.
- Melted and gram gold. Quantity in grams and purity.
- Leave a note. The mint year, where it's kept, anything that will help later.
See net worth at the day's rate
If your ledger fetches gold and coin rates every day, you can see different assets side by side in toman (or dollars, or any other currency). That's when it becomes clear what half your savings are in, and what happens if the dollar or gold moves.
Record the changes
Every time a quantity changes, say you sold a coin, it should be clear who changed it and when. If several people share a ledger, an activity log settles the "where did that coin go?" argument before it starts.
In Ricordax gold, coins, currency and bitcoin are assets: recorded by quantity, valued at the day's rate, and every change in quantity stays in the activity log. Have a look at the personal and family app.