Currencies and exchange rates

Flowtly Editorial Team2 min

Your organization has one currency of its own, set under Settings → Organization. Records can be kept in other currencies — a supplier cost in euros, a client invoice in dollars — and Flowtly converts them whenever it has to show them together: on a budget total, in a report or dashboard figure, and in an accountancy export.

Where a rate comes from

Flowtly looks for a rate for the pair on the date of the record, in this order:

  1. The daily table published by the National Bank of Poland (NBP), the rate source for every currency it quotes.
  2. A fixed official rate, for the currencies NBP does not quote but which are held at a rate set by treaty or by a central bank rather than by a market.

If neither applies, the pair cannot be priced and Flowtly stops — see below.

A fixed rate is consulted only when NBP has no quote for that day, so it can never displace a market rate for a currency NBP does price.

Currencies converted at a fixed rate

Currency Rate
Central African CFA franc (XAF) 655.957 to the euro
Saudi riyal (SAR) 3.75 to the US dollar
Bulgarian lev (BGN) 1.95583 to the euro

These are not market rates and do not move. The lev rate is the irrevocable conversion rate fixed when Bulgaria adopted the euro, and records held in lev convert at it.

Currencies that cannot be converted

The Argentine peso (ARS), the Nigerian naira (NGN) and the Russian rouble (RUB) have no rate source in Flowtly. A record in one of these converts nowhere, and any document that would have to convert it will not be produced.

When a document does not generate

If an invoice, a budget figure or an export stops with a currency error, it means an amount on it could not be converted at a rate Flowtly can stand behind. The error names the two currencies, the date and the record involved.

One line that cannot be converted stops the whole document. This is deliberate. A document that looks entirely normal but carries converted amounts that are wrong is worse than one that does not appear, because the wrong one gets filed or sent to a client.

Retrying does not help, because nothing about the rate changes between attempts. Instead:

  • Read the currencies named in the error and check them against the lists above.
  • If a record is in a currency Flowtly cannot convert, re-enter it in one that can be converted, or remove it from the document.
  • If the currency should be priced and is not, raise it with support rather than working around it.

Example use cases

  • Invoicing a client in euros while the organization keeps its books in another currency.
  • Recording supplier costs in Central African CFA francs and reading the budget total in the organization's own currency.
  • Handing an accountancy export to an accountant with every figure converted at a documented rate.

Connection map

Refers toUses upDerived fromPart ofPlanned vs actual
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
invoice billed to counterparty. invoice taxed by tax-group. cost spends against budget. cost owed to counterparty. bank-transaction reconciled to invoice. bank-connection imports bank-transaction. contract schedules payment-schedule-line. payment-schedule-line invoiced as invoice. contract agreed with counterparty. contract attached to budget. contract orders purchase-order-line. purchase-order-line prices position. purchase-order-line estimated against time-entry. budget raises budget-alert. budget covers project. counterparty defaults to budget. counterparty defaults to project. invoice billed from project. set-off-declaration settles invoice. set-off-declaration declared with counterparty. project linked to budget. tenant-turnover reported by counterparty. tenant-turnover compared per area from contract. utilities-statement calculated for contract. lead becomes counterparty. deal sold to counterparty.billed totaxed byspends againstowed toreconciled toimportsschedulesinvoiced asagreed withattached toorderspricesestimated againstraisescoversdefaults todefaults tobilled fromsettlesdeclared withlinked toreported bycompared per area fromcalculated forbecomessold toIInvoice — A sales document issued to a client: line items, dates, tax. It is created, reviewed, previewed and then sent — or, when it went out some other way, recorded as delivered.InvoiceCCounterparty — The other side of a financial document — a client billed, or a supplier owed.CounterpartyTTax group — The tax treatment applied to a line, so rates are set once rather than per document.Tax groupCCost — Money the organisation owes or has spent, tracked against a budget.CostBBudget — The financial envelope an engagement is measured against — what was planned, versus what has actually been spent.BudgetBBank transaction — A movement on a connected bank account. Matching it to an invoice or a cost is what makes the books agree with the bank.Bank transactionBBank connection — The consented link to one bank that transactions arrive through. It can stop working on its own — a consent expires or is withdrawn — so it reports whether it is still working.Bank connectionCContract — The financial terms of an engagement: a structured set of payment schedule lines, in one direction or the other.ContractPPayment schedule line — One dated amount on a contract, in a direction — money owed to a supplier, or due from a client.Payment schedule lineOOrder line — One line of a purchase order: a role priced by the hour with the hours estimated for it, or a deliverable priced as an outcome. A deliverable carries no hours at all.Order linePPosition — The catalogue of job titles a project role is drawn from.PositionTTime entry — What actually happened — work time logged against a project.Time entryBBudget alert — A notice that a budget has gone off plan - spending over the planned amount, or a margin below the one that was planned. It is raised by a daily check rather than by anyone asking for it.Budget alertPProject — The core organizational unit for a business initiative, client engagement or internal work. Everything tracked — time, cost, invoicing, profitability — hangs off one.ProjectSSet-off declaration — A record that your invoices to one counterparty and its cost documents were settled against each other, in amounts that balance exactly. It lowers what remains due on the invoices; it is not a payment.Set-off declarationTTenant turnover — A tenant's reported sales for one month, entered by staff and used for reporting only. An absent figure means not reported, which is a different statement from a reported zero.Tenant turnoverUUtilities statement — One lease's electricity for one month, the kWh its meters recorded times the tariff in force. A draft until finalised, then it never changes; a correction is a new draft.Utilities statementPProspect — A company you are working but that is not a customer yet. It sits at New, Contacted or Qualified, and everything done to it is logged against it.ProspectDDeal — A sale in progress: a customer, an amount, and the stage it has reached. It cannot exist without a customer, and its stage is never blank.Deal

Related terms