Finance · Accountants · about 7 min
Working in other currencies
Your books stay in your base currency (naira). A customer, vendor, order or bank account can be in another currency: TinERP keeps its own amounts, converts them at a rate for the books, and posts any exchange gain or loss for you.
1. Add your exchange rates
Go to Finance → Settings → Exchange rates and select Add a rate: the currency, the date, how many naira one unit buys, and whose rate it is - CBN official, NAFEM, your bank's, or other.
A document takes the latest rate on or before its own date, unless you type one on it - and it keeps that rate. Without a rate, a document in that currency is refused, with a message saying where to add one.
If you set Finance up before exchange rates came in, select Add the exchange account in Finance → Settings first - it's where gains and losses go.
2. Invoices, bills and orders in another currency
Give the customer or vendor their currency (Invoiced in or Bills in). Their invoices and bills then default to it; an invoice can choose another. Each form shows the rate and what the total comes to in naira.
In Procurement, a requisition line can be priced in dollars - the approver sees the naira estimate - and an order to a dollar vendor is in dollars. Approval limits, budgets, the quote rule and reports all use the naira figure.
3. Getting paid and paying
Record the receipt or payment in the document's currency, with the rate the bank actually used. The invoice or bill is cleared at its own rate; the difference is an exchange gain or loss, posted for you. Money received on account is settled the same way when it's allocated.
Pay bills in one currency at a time. Payment runs are for naira bills; pay a dollar bill on its own.
| Example | Naira |
|---|---|
| $1,000 invoice at 1,500 | 1,500,000 |
| Paid at the bank's 1,600 | 1,600,000 |
| Exchange gain | 100,000 |
4. Domiciliary (foreign-currency) bank accounts
In Finance → Banking, Add account with its currency - for example USD - and a ledger account of its own. Everything in or out of it is in dollars; its balance shows in dollars, with its naira book value underneath.
Transfer to a naira account asks what arrived in naira: the difference from what the dollars were worth in the books is a gain or loss. Its bank statement is imported and reconciled in dollars.
5. Revalue at month-end
First, with your accountant, choose the three settings in Finance → Settings → Exchange rates: whose rates to use, where unrealised gains and losses go (the exchange account, or their own), and whether each month's is reversed the next day or carried forward. Nothing is chosen for you.
Then go to Finance → Revaluation, choose the month-end and select Work it out. You see each open invoice, bill, money on account and foreign bank account restated at that day's rate, with its gain or loss. Select Post revaluation.
A month with open balances in other currencies can't be closed until it's revalued.
Tip: Enter the month-end rate from the source you chose before revaluing - revaluation only uses that source.
Questions
Can I change a rate after a document is saved?
Documents keep the rate they were saved with. Add the right rate for the date, then edit the draft (or type the rate on it) - posted documents are corrected with a credit or debit note.
Which rate does a document use when there are several on a day?
The source you chose for revaluation first, then CBN official, NAFEM and the bank's.
What's the difference between realised and unrealised?
Realised is when money actually moves at a different rate than the document was booked at. Unrealised is the month-end restatement of what's still open - reversed or carried forward, as your settings say.