Euro Pre Paid Master Card

[Andy_B]

Hi Guys,

So we have just returned from a trip to Europe. We took and used a Post Office - Travel Money Card, which is a pre-paid/loaded card from Mastercard, which is topped up online, via an app or in the post office.

With this card when you top up, you chose the currency in question (Euro’s in this case) and the card is loaded with euro’s based on an agreed exchange rate at the time.

We loaded it with €170 (£157.95), in effect giving us an opening balance.

We then used the card on our trip whilst in Europe, obviously paying in Euro’s, retaining purchase receipts for our accounting records (mainly train tickets etc…) We have a closing/standing balance of €94.46 left on the card, obviously if we top up again, this will be at a different exchange rate in the future.

Can you please advise how best to set up this account (perhaps setup similar to a current account?) and can we give the account an opening balance in Euro’s?

One other observation, worth considering is that we paid for the initial Euro’s from our UK current account, so one assumes there will need to be a transfer from one account to another, however the ‘out’ on the current account will be in sterling and the in (opening balance) on the travel money card will be in Euro’s.

There is also the additional consideration of if we log purchases as being made in sterling or Euro’s, however I guess this all depends on how the account is setup?

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks - Andy

[ian_roberts]

I’d set up the card as a Euro currency bank account in QuickFile without an opening balance, then tag the £157.95 payment out of your current account as a transfer to the card account - you should be able to set the Euro amount at that point. Your Euro purchases can then be paid directly out of the Euro account.

When it comes to your year end (or any other time when you want an accurate balance sheet) there’s an option on the bank account somewhere to record a currency gain or loss, which is a special journal which adjusts the GBP nominal value of the bank account without touching the EUR balance, putting the matching entry to “currency charges”.