What do I do if one of my bank accounts is in a different currency?
Whilst most charities only have bank accounts in the currency in which they create accounts, it's possible for charities to have bank accounts in other currencies as well.
To create accounts in the currency where your charity is regulated and registered (typically GBP), you will need to ensure that all bank transactions are uploaded in the reporting currency for which you are going to create accounts.
For any bank accounts in a different currency to the reporting currency (e.g. EUR):
- Transactions will need to be converted into the reporting currency (e.g. GBP) prior to being uploaded to ExpensePlus.
- Manually upload a correcting transaction at the end of each month (to account for any small currency variations during the month)
This article explains how to do both of these things.
Please refer to our separate Help Guide articles if all bank accounts are in your reporting currency (e.g., GBP), but you need to:
- record a purchase made in another currency (e.g. expenses for an overseas trip)
- reconcile foreign currency transactions (e.g., business card purchase where the bank statement amount is slightly different to the converted purchase amount)
Uploading bank transactions in GBP for an account in a different currency
Before you can upload transactions into ExpensePlus for your foreign currency bank account, you’ll first need to ensure the transactions have been converted into GBP within the statement spreadsheet you are trying to upload. This will ensure your financial reports and year-end accounts are correct.
Dealing with currency fluctuations
As there are fluctuations in currency exchange rates, it's likely there will be small variations between your bank account balance in ExpensePlus and your account balance converted into GBP on your bank statement at the end of each month.
To correct for this, we'd recommend that at the end of each month, for each of your foreign currency accounts, you manually upload a correcting transaction to account for the variations.
This will ensure that your financial reports and year-end accounts are correct.
To help you better understand the Bank reconciliation module, please visit the module overview page here.