• From: Malta
  • Registered: 04/06/2012
  • Posts: 123

Topic: Foreign Exchange Rates

Hi,
Started working with foreign exchange transactions. Everytime I create an invoice (past dated), FA reports that it cannot get the exchange rate and instructs to enter the amount manually. After checking the ECB it transpired that ECB only provide the day's exchange rates in the xml format required.

However, on the Exchange Rates screen, one is given the choice to choose a date and "Get" the exchange.
This is incorrect as the "Get" button only gets today's rate of exchange. That little button requires an explanation and warning that only today's exchange is extracted from the provider.

It is noted that when an invoice is created with today's date, the Rate of Exchange is automatically extracted. Therefore we can do without the "Get" button altogether unless we want to get the day's rate without issuing invoices.

What are your views?

Carmelo

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,160

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

For records and settlements, even if there are no transactions/invoices, every day's exchange rate may be got.

apmuthu's Website

3 Reply by RandomName (edited by RandomName 07/26/2015 09:35:44 am)

  • From: Luxembourg
  • Registered: 06/28/2015
  • Posts: 48

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

Why do you want to carry someone else currency risks and expenses for converting currency?
We decided to bill everyone in EUR and not take the unnecessary risk. It's not our business to trade on Forex.

BTW, ECB rate is only a indication for banks and you can never ever get that same rate, even if you make huge transactions. It's always off by few points to feed the greedy usurer aka your bank. smile

If you keep the foreign currency, ECB's exchange rate is used only for reporting in your base currency.

If your base currency is EUR but you billed me 100 USD for XYZ, and you keep the USD on your bank account, the exchange rate has no meaning until you need to report your equity in EUR.

If you convert the USD at some later point in time, the exchange rate used on your invoice has no meaning either. (unless you have "forward" or "futures" contact with your bank) 

You can only use the rate offered to you on the moment you converted USD to EUR and you need to use your bank rate for tha, not ECB rate.

What happens is : You buy X EUR with your 100 USD.
Or if you like, you sell 100 USD, for X EUR
Now you can calculate the actual value of you transaction in EUR.

ECB rate is used ONLY for reporting, not for issuing invoices.

Do yourself and your company a favour - stick to one currency!

  • From: Malta
  • Registered: 04/06/2012
  • Posts: 123

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

Thanks RandomName for your insight.
However, things are not always as simple as you make them to be.
For example my Supplier bills me in US$ and I have 30 days credit, still I want to know what the value of the bill in EUR is and that is only done if I get the rate of exchange.
After payment, the story is different of course, as then we would have the real rate of exchange.

  • From: Malta
  • Registered: 04/06/2012
  • Posts: 123

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

apmuthu wrote:

For records and settlements, even if there are no transactions/invoices, every day's exchange rate may be got.

Apmuthu, it is not working for me. I am running FA 2.3.24. And as I reported in my post, past requests for ROE give an error.

Any suggestions?

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,160

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

Try using the FA 2.3.24+ snapshot as it has some issues fixed since the stable release? If you still have issues, PM me with remote access details.

apmuthu's Website

  • From: Malta
  • Registered: 04/06/2012
  • Posts: 123

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

Thanks Apmuthu for sending in the snapshot.
I checked that against what I had and it looked the same, but just in case I installed the snapshot on another domain, with the same results.

I don't think there is a way around it as ECB do not offer ROE for other days in the same way as they offer for the current date.

8 Reply by apmuthu (edited by apmuthu 07/29/2015 05:51:57 pm)

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,160

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

See if the default URL for ECB works:

http://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml

The relevant code is in lines 114-115 in gl\includes\db\gl_db_rates.inc

All forex rate service providers harnessed in FA are for current exchange rates only.

apmuthu's Website

  • From: Malta
  • Registered: 04/06/2012
  • Posts: 123

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

Thanks apmuthu,
The link the you provided for ECB only provides the rate for the current day.
Therefore it is impossible for FA to extract a rate for a different day using that URL.

My original observation was (and still is) that the GET button on the Exchange Rate screen is misleading.
It should be disabled if the date in the "Date to Use From" is not the current date.

What do you think?

Carmelo

10 Reply by apmuthu (edited by apmuthu 07/30/2015 07:33:55 am)

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,160

Re: Foreign Exchange Rates

Actually, the GET button can be renamed to get the current rate only rather than disabling it - most currencies are not that volatile ordinarily and will serve as a reference to manually adjust them from other manually looked up sources.

Getting historical data is possible from providers like XE.com but then somewhere else we would need to pre-populate the date before submitting it as a GET request. To this end you may lookup the function provided in my GitHub phpprojects/XE and incorporate it into FA. You may need to buy their API license (about USD 800/- a year!) if you use it often as they record IPs.

apmuthu's Website