Foreign currency invoices

[Derek Atkins]

hi,

Quoting Wouter van Marle <wouter at squirrel-systems.com>:

> Hi all,
>
> I've an invoicing issue that I can't get working properly.
> The situation: I have a bank account in HKD, and am invoicing customers
> sometimes in HKD, sometimes in USD. The USD invoices are typically
> settled in USD: that is I get an incoming T/T in USD, of which some
> intermediate bank always steals a bit, and then my bank takes their
> commission and settles the rest in HKD at the current exchange rate in
> my account.

You need two sets of accounts.  Invoices are all single currency.
You cannot have a multi-currency invoice.  That means that the invoice
currency MUST == the account currencies (INCLUDING your A/R account)..
And then the payment must also be made into an account of the same
currency.

> Now I tried to set for one customer the invoice to USD, but it doesn't
> get automatically converted to HKD when entering it: the USD invoice is
> taken as if it is HKD, no exchange rate is taken into account.

Correct.  PAY it into the intermediate, USD bank, then make a regaular
transaction from that to your HKD bank.

> How to do this well?

Separate trees.

> I'm using an A/Receivable account for the invoices, which later get
> paid, usually settled against the HKD Bank account.

Don't do that..  Have separate USD and HKD A/R accounts.

> Wouter.

-derek
-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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