Invoice Currencies

[Jeremy Andrews]

On Sun, 2008-11-16 at 14:05 -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Jeremy Andrews <jeremy at tag1consulting.com> writes:
> > I'm trying to figure out how to track invoices that are in different
> > currencies than my default currency.
> >
> > My default currency is USD.  I'm billing a customer in Euros.  When I
> > set up the Customer account, I configured their Currency for Euros.  I
> > then create a new invoice, and enter the quantity and price.  At the
> > bottom, it shows me the total preceded by a $ -- does that mean the
> > invoice is not being tracked in Euros?
> >
> > If I post the invoice, it shows up in Accounts Receivable with a 0
> > balance, instead of the (for example) 100 Euros I entered in the
> > invoice.  I have gone to the price editor and set up a EUR -> USD
> > conversion rate, but this doesn't seem to help, the invoice still posts
> > with a 0 balance.
> >
> > If I try to mark the invoice payed at Business -> Customer -> Process
> > Payment, it populates the invoice amount as 0.00.  If I accept that,
> > then go to my register and try to adjust the payment, it tells me "You
> > need to expand the transaction in order to modify its exchange rates."
> > Where do I do this?
> >
> > How can I get this invoice to show up in accounts receivables?  And when
> > the payment finally comes through from the client, how can I adjust the
> > conversion rate based on what the bank actually gave me (versus what it
> > is today)?
> 
> Make sure your Invoice (via your Customer), A/R, Asset, and Income
> accounts all have the same currency.  It sounds like in your case
> they do not.

I finally sat down and made this work.  I'm documenting what I did here
to confirm that this is the correct way to do it, and if so, to possibly
help the next person trying to do the same thing.

My default currency is USD, which applies to all accounts.  What I'm
trying to do is properly track invoices and payments in another
currency, in this case EUR.

1) When creating my new customer, on the Billing Information tab I set
their currency to EUR.  All invoices for this customer will therefore be
in EUR, not USD.

2) I created a new Income account which mirrors my normal income
account, but is in EUR.  For example, my normal income account is
"Income:Foo", so I created a new income account "Income:Foo (Euros)",
and set the Security/currency to EUR.

3) I created a new "Accounts Receivable (Euros)" account, setting the
Security/currency as "EUR", and the Account Type as "A/Receivable".

4) I created a new "fake" conversion bank account named "Conversion
(Euros)" in Assets:Current Assets.  Again, I set the Security/currency
to EUR.  This is not a real bank account, I created it simply to receive
payments in Euros, and to handle the conversion into USD into my real
bank account.

5) When filling out the invoice, I set the "Income Account" to be my new
"Income:Foo (Euros)" account.  I filled out the Unit Price in Euros, not
USD.

6) When I posted the invoice, for the "Post to Account" field I selected
"Assets:Accounts Receivable (Euros)".

7) At this point, I could go to "Tools -> Price Editor" and set the
current exchange rate for EUR -> USD.  I could also then go to the
Accounts overview tab, right click the "Total" column and enable the
"Total (USD)" column to be able to view the value the new Euro accounts
in USD based on the current conversion rate.  This was not necessary.

8) When payment was received, I went to "Business -> Customer -> Process
Payment" as normal.  I selected the Customer and Invoice as normal, and
then confirmed the Amount in Euros.  I set "Post To" to "Assets:Accounts
Receivable (Euros)", and set "Transfer Account" to "Assets:Current
Assets:Conversion (Euros)".

9) Finally, I manually transferred the money from "Transfer (Euros)" to
my real bank account by adding a new line item with a description
"Convert to USD", and selecting the correct bank account in the Transfer
column.  In the Decrease column I set the amount that was paid in Euros.
Finally, I right clicked this new line and selected "Edit Exchange Rate"
from the contextual menu that popped up.  In the "Transfer Funds" window
that appeared, I set the proper exchange rate as provided to me by the
bank.  (I chose to track the bank fee as a separate line item, rather
than in a split, as this is how Bank of America shows it on their
statements.)

>From what I can tell, if I start billing in other currencies, I will
have to create 3 new accounts for each currency, as described above.
And at this point, I now appear to be properly tracking invoices and
payments in two currencies.

Cheers,
 -Jeremy