Foreign currency gains/losses

[AAG]

Hello,

I am new to quickfile and have a problem logging foreign currency payments from last year without creating a gain because the current exchange rate used, I assume, is today’s not the rate for the day I received the payment. Example : I invoiced €950 20/10/15 with the exchange rate of 1.3665 and received payment the same day but when I look at the log for the payment which I entered today it is showing at a rate of 1.1813 which I cannot amend. What, if anything can I do about this?

Helen

[QFMathew]

Hi Helen

When you log a payment through the “Log a payment” option on an invoice, and log it against a GBP bank account, you will be prompted to enter a GBP value. It will try to calculate this for you based on the exchange rates, but you can edit the GBP value to change the exchange rate.

So, for example, I could have a 200.00 USD invoice. If I log a payment today, it will generate a GBP equivalent, but I can change this to 140.00 GBP for example, and it will calculate the exchange rate.

The difference you see (the loss or gain), is the difference between the exchange rate on the date the invoice was created (we use historic rates from xe.com, or you can enter your own), and compare this with the one entered at the time of payment.

I hope that helps

[ian_roberts]

Does it matter what order you do things in when logging a payment? If you set the correct date first and only then enter the amount (or click “pay in full”) it will pick up the exchange rate for that date, but if you enter the amount while the date box still says today and then subsequently change the date I’m not sure whether it will recalculate automatically.

[Glenn]

At the moment we don’t dynamically change the exchange rate or the GBP amount when the date is changed. We provide both the GBP and USD (or other foreign currency) and deduce the exchange rate from the values entered here. The assumption is that the actual GBP amount will usually be known as it will be visible on the bank statement, so the effective exchange rate is simply there for reference purpose, but not to calculate the GBP amount.

We’re open to suggestions here, I guess what we want to avoid is a user entering their own figures, changing the date and the system overriding what was entered.