Currencies

In DovleEntry, the currency belongs to each amount, not to the account: any amount can be in any currency, and an amount keeps its currency until you change it. A dinner of 45 EUR paid with your dollar card is 45 EUR until your statement says what it cost in dollars.

Native and foreign

Each document has a native currency, the one you use the most, chosen in the Document Properties section of the preferences. Totals, net worth and profit are given in it. Every other currency is foreign.

The rule for showing amounts is simple: an amount in the native currency is shown as a plain number, and an amount in another currency always comes with the three letters of its currency, as in EUR 45.00.

Typing an amount

A number without letters is in the native currency, with one exception: in the tab of an account in another currency, it’s in the currency of that account. In a euro account, you very likely mean euros.

To give an amount any currency, type its three letters before or after it: 45 eur, CAD 120, 120cad. Upper and lower case don’t matter.

Exchange rates

DovleEntry doesn’t convert the amounts of your transactions: a rate is an estimate, and your bank never uses exactly the rate of the day. But it needs rates to add amounts of different currencies together, in the totals, the net worth, the profit and the balance of an account that holds a foreign amount. It then uses the rate of the date of each transaction.

The rates come from the Bank of Canada, which publishes the daily rates of the main currencies. DovleEntry asks for them when a document needs them, so a connection to the internet is needed the first time, and keeps them on your computer for the next times. A currency that the bank doesn’t publish keeps a fixed rate, the one DovleEntry comes with.

Between two currencies

Most transactions are in one currency, even when you travel: the 45 EUR dinner is in euros until you correct it to the dollars that your card took.

A transfer between two of your accounts in different currencies is different: 100 USD leave your checking account and 87 EUR arrive in your euro account. Both sides are true, and no rate makes them equal. So, by exception, a transaction between currencies always balances.

To write one, add the transfer from the first account, for 100 USD to “Euro account”. Then, in the tab of “Euro account”, change the amount of the same transaction to 87 EUR. DovleEntry sees that the other side is an account in another currency, keeps its 100 USD, and the transaction now holds both amounts.

Banks usually give you less than the rate of the day. To count that difference as an expense, open the transaction with Ctrl+I and click Multi-currency balance: a new line gets the difference between the two sides at the rate of the day. Give it an account like Fees.

The rules, in short

• An amount in a foreign currency is always shown with its three letters.
• An amount typed with three letters is in that currency.
• A plain amount is in the native currency, except in the tab of an account in another currency, or among the lines of a transaction in another currency.
• Totals, net worth and profit are in the native currency.
• A transaction between currencies always balances.

The currencies