RE: Could SQL-ledger ever support multiple currencies within a co mpany?

[Leo R M. <Le...@Ne...>]

Perhaps my situation is more relevant.  My corporation is in Canada with
both Canadian and US clients.  Each country's clients are billed in that
country's currency.  Under the Canada-US Tax Treaty, my corporation is 
taxable only in Canada because it doesn't have a permanent base of 
operations in the USA.  Therefore, my books are kept in CAD$ only.

The way I've found to handle this is to have the USD$ invoices include
entries for the exchange to all relevant accounts such as A/R and 
USD$ revenue.  These entries are equal and opposite so that the customer
sees these lines as net zero irrelevant entries.  However, this does
keep the books viable for immediate CAD$ reports.

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Doerr [mailto:sd...@sw...]
Sent: August 23, 2001 22:11
To: sql...@li...
Subject: Re: Could SQL-ledger ever support multiple currencies within a
company?


Jeff Kowalczyk wrote:

> [Jijo] I just thought I'd raise a concern here. I'm from the Philippines
> and here, believe me, the foreign exchange rates are more volatile than
> the rise and fall of the tides. That would be something quite difficult
> to deal with, although I don't think first world countries experience
> such volatility.
>
> [jeff] If a US company did business there, purchased inventory and sold
> goods in the local currency, but reported back to a US concern, would
> everything be accounted for in Phillipine Dollars or US dollars?

The Phillipine based company would keep their books in Phillipine peso's.
Then the foreign currency financial statements are translated to US dollars
before the parent reports results.

Translation rules are very specific, with some items (i.e. monetary assets
like cash and receivables) translated at current rates, and historical cost
based assets and liabilities at historical rates (like a building).
Revenues and expenses are translated at the rate on the transaction date,
or an average for the period.

The parent would make a journal entry to reflect the net translation
effect.  There isn't really a need to handle multiple currencies, because
each operation would and should keep their books entirely in the local
currency.