Currencies
Activate the foreign currencies your company works with, set their exchange rate against your functional currency, and assign the ledger accounts used when you invoice, purchase or collect in that currency.
What is this screen?
AdmCloud ships with a built-in worldwide catalog of currencies (each with its three-letter code, name, symbol and fractional unit, for example USD / US Dollar / $ / cent). This screen is not for inventing new currencies, but for activating the ones your company actually uses: when you add one, you pick its code from that worldwide list and AdmCloud fills in its name, symbol and fraction automatically; you only enter its exchange rate and, optionally, its default ledger accounts.
Every company (or every subsidiary, if you use subsidiaries with a different currency) has a functional currency — the base currency your books are kept in. Every other currency you activate here is a "foreign currency" whose exchange rate is recorded relative to that functional currency.
What is it for?
- It enables foreign-currency transactions and accounts. You can only invoice, purchase, collect, pay, or create a ledger account, a price list or a credit card in a given currency if that currency is activated here.
- It centralizes the exchange rate. The rate you register (automatic or manual) is what your transactions, financial statement reports and consolidations use to convert foreign-currency amounts into your functional currency.
- It offers an automatic USD exchange rate for the Dominican Republic. If your functional currency is the Dominican Peso (DOP), you can turn on automatic fetching of the Dollar (USD) rate from the Central Bank (and, if your account has the feature enabled, from Banco Popular), instead of registering it by hand every day.
- It shares the exchange rate across sibling companies. If you manage several AdmCloud companies under the same account, the manual exchange rate you register for a currency is automatically updated on every sibling company that shares that same functional currency.
How to use this screen
- Browse the list of active currencies. You will see every currency your company has already activated, with its current exchange rate (flagged with (auto) when it is fetched automatically) and a link to edit it if you have permission.
- Add a currency. Use the New button and pick the code you need from the worldwide catalog. The name, symbol and fraction fill in on their own; the starting exchange rate is 1, unless a rate for that currency is already registered on another company under your same account, in which case that rate is reused.
- Browse the detail. Click the currency's name to open its full read-only record, including its exchange rate history.
- Register or update the exchange rate. From the detail of any currency other than your functional currency, enter the date and the new rate and save it; it is added to the history and you can delete an entry if you made a mistake. If the currency is the Dollar (USD) and your functional currency is the Dominican Peso (DOP), instead of this manual entry you can turn on Get Exchange Rate Automatically and choose the source (Central Bank or another enabled one) and whether it uses the Purchase or the Sale rate.
- Edit the currency's data. From the detail, use Edit to assign the default ledger accounts (receivable, payable, employee payable, returned checks and cash/bank) used when creating documents in that currency, and to write internal notes.
- Delete a currency. Only possible if it was never used — that is, if it has no transactions, ledger accounts, customers/vendors, price lists, CRM opportunities, subsidiaries, budgets, online stores, job openings, projects or other linked records.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Code | The currency's three-letter ISO code (for example USD, EUR, DOP). It is picked from the worldwide catalog when the currency is created and cannot be changed afterward. |
| Name, Sign and Fraction | Filled in automatically from the worldwide catalog when you pick the Code; they are not typed by hand. |
| Exchange Rate | How many units of your functional currency equal one unit of this currency. It is updated from the detail screen (manually or automatically), not from the edit form. |
| Get Exchange Rate Automatically | Available only for the Dollar (USD) when your functional currency is the Dominican Peso (DOP). Turning it on pulls the rate from the chosen official source instead of registering it by hand. |
| Automatic Rate Source and Type | The source of the automatic rate (Central Bank, or Banco Popular if your account has that feature enabled) and whether it uses that source's Purchase or Sale rate. |
| Receivable / Payable / Employee Payable / Returned Checks / Default Cash Account | The ledger accounts suggested when creating documents in this currency. Each one must be denominated in exactly this same currency. |
| Notes | A free-text field for internal clarifications about how this currency is used. |
Validations when saving
- The code must exist in the worldwide catalog. You cannot make up currency codes; you can only activate the ones AdmCloud ships with.
- The same currency cannot be activated twice. If the code is already active on your company, the system rejects adding it again.
- The assigned ledger accounts must be in the same currency. If you pick a receivable, payable, employee payable, returned checks or cash/bank account denominated in a different currency, the save is rejected.
- The currency limit depends on your plan. On the current versions of every AdmCloud plan (Invoices/Billing, Start, Basic, Standard, Premium, Premium Plus, Premium Plus Payroll and Enterprise) the number of currencies you can activate is unlimited.
- The manual exchange rate must be greater than zero and you cannot register a rate for a currency against itself.
- The automatic rate option only applies to USD with DOP as the functional currency. If your company is not in that scenario, this option is not available.
- A currency in use cannot be deleted. AdmCloud checks that it has no accounting or payroll transactions, ledger accounts, customers or vendors, item or customer price lists, CRM opportunities, subsidiaries, credit card operators, budgets, online stores, job openings, projects, accounting distribution rules or promotions linked to it before allowing the deletion.
Availability and permissions
This screen belongs to the System Administration module, and the number of active currencies is unlimited on every current AdmCloud plan. Access is controlled by the Currencies permission on the user group: the view level is needed to browse the list and the detail, the add level to activate new currencies, and the edit/delete levels to change their data or remove them. If you don't see the New button or the Edit option, ask your administrator to review your user group's privileges.
Tips and common pitfalls
Create the ledger accounts in that currency first. If you want to assign a default receivable, payable or cash/bank account to a currency, make sure that account already exists in your Chart of Accounts in that same currency; otherwise the system won't let you save it.
The exchange rate is not edited from the Edit form. That form only changes the default ledger accounts and the notes. To update the exchange rate, go to the currency's detail and register it there (or turn on automatic fetching if it applies).
If you manage several companies with the same functional currency, remember that manually updating a currency's exchange rate on one of them also updates that same rate on every other company in your account that shares that functional currency — you don't need to repeat the entry on each one.