Alternate Currencies#

Overview#

You can use the invoice currency feature to bill customers in a currency other than your own.

You can already store this currency when you set up a work breakdown structure for a project. Sales prices (and amounts) are then shown in the invoice currency and in local currency during planning and in the invoice currency on all sales documents that you create from the structure (which includes quotes, orders, and invoices).

To provide sales estimates, a budget rate is used. Although specified on the project card, it might differ across WBS versions.

However, the rate isn’t retrieved when you post a sales document. Instead, all revenue-related fields are recalculated by using the exchange rate that is valid at the time.

You can change invoice currencies in the planning stage. You can no longer do so after project ledger entries have been created.

With an invoice currency selected, a project ledger entry of type Usage shows budgeted revenue in this currency and in local currency. An entry of type Sale, on the other hand, displays revenue values only in the currency in which you’re billing the customer, with prices and amounts converted to LCY when you post the entry.

One process that invoice currencies aren’t used for is budgeting costs. Costs that are posted to a project budget are always shown in local currency—even if you order goods from abroad.

LCY is also the only currency used in cost control, that is, for charts of project accounts and dimension analyses, as cross-project comparisons might otherwise turn into an extremely challenging task.

On project cards#

As an example of how to work with invoice currencies on project cards, you create a project from a template and specify a customer whom you need to bill in Canadian dollars.

Immediately thereafter, you set the status of the project to Open and pick a starting date.

Typically, the invoice currency code (which you can find on the Invoice and Shipping FastTab) is filled in automatically during this process. However, if none is stored with the bill-to customer, a code must be selected manually.

Like on sales documents, you can then modify the currency’s exchange rate by using the Assist button next to the code field.

Alternatively, you can fill in an Invoice Currency Date. This field was added to make up for the lack of project card information, such as a posting date, that is needed to calculate exchange rates. If you enter a date, the corresponding rate is determined based on the values stored in the Currency Exchange Rate table.

The rate you can see on the project card is the default value. It is later copied to the project’s WBS versions, where it can be modified if necessary.

Changes in currency are copied to all WBS versions of a project, with the project’s revenue-related fields being recalculated as a result.

By contrast, modified rates aren’t, as you might want to use a different rate in each version.

For sales prices#

You can specify sales prices in several places throughout the app. Typically, these prices are given in local currency and are converted only if necessary.

If you want to use an invoice currency that general prices aren’t available for, we recommend that you set up project-specific values in that currency for certain resources, items, or G/L accounts.

1. Choose the Search icon, enter Projects, and then choose the related link.
2. Open a project card.
3. On the ribbon, go to Prices & Discounts and choose one of the sales price options.
4. Fill in the fields as necessary and select the currency that you want the system to use as the default for invoicing.

On a WBS#

Each work breakdown structure includes the following fields on the Billing FastTab:

• Invoice Currency Code
• Invoice Currency Factor
• Invoice Currency Date

All three fields can also be found on project cards, considering their values are copied from there. Except for the currency code, you can change them in every WBS version. This way, you can see the sales prices and amounts specified for a project at different exchange rates across multiple versions.

On WBS lines#

You reopen the project card set up in our earlier example. On the ribbon, you choose Actions > Create WBS from Project Template.

You now see a message that says an invoice currency was specified on the template card, and you’re asked if you want to retrieve it. You choose Yes.

As a next step, you unhide the Invoice Currency Date and Invoice Currency Factor fields on the WBS lines.

Both have been filled in from the header. Provided the Copy Budget checkbox isn’t selected (that is, no budget lines need to be added for detailed planning), the unit price on each WBS line is then converted in one of two ways:

• If stored in local currency, it is converted to the invoice currency.
• If specified in the invoice currency, for example, in the Project Resource Price table, it is converted to local currency and entered into the Unit Price (LCY) field.

In our example, the system calculates a unit price of 70 and converts it to CAD by retrieving the currency factor from the related WBS line.

After calculation, you choose the Assist button next to the Invoice Currency Factor field on the Billing tab and enter a factor of 1.5 for this WBS version.

You’re asked if you want the new factor to apply to all existing WBS lines and their budget lines (with the alternative being that the factor would be used on new WBS lines only). Additionally, you’re informed the change has no effect on already available sales documents.

You choose Yes. As a result, the factor is now applied to all lines set up in this version while each Unit Price field is recalculated in CAD.

On budget lines#

You can also select invoice currencies on budget lines; how project-specific unit prices can be used in this context has already been discussed earlier.

Based on our previous example, you enter a price of CAD90 for resources of work type CONSULTING and set up a resource-type budget line.

The system then converts the CAD90 price to local currency by retrieving the currency factor from the associated WBS line. You can, however, change the factor again in the project budget, if needed.

Additionally, the following fields are selected automatically on the budget line:

• The Fixed Project Price checkbox, to indicate that a project-specific resource price is being used.
• The Unit Price (FCY) checkbox, to say that the price was calculated in the invoice currency and was converted to LCY.

On sales documents#

For an example of how to work with invoice currencies on sales documents, set up a new sales order and enter the number of the project you’ve created earlier in this article.

Customer data is then retrieved automatically to fill in the sell-to and bill-to fields.

The invoice currency is also copied over. In our case, it’s the currency stored with the customer, although that’s not always true. Attempts to enter another currency on the sales header will prompt an error message.

You now open the work breakdown structure. On the ribbon, you choose New > Create Sales Document. The status of the project and its WBS lines must be set to Open; the system verifies this when you choose OK on the request page.

After the function is run, the unit and total prices from the project’s WBS and budget lines will be shown in Canadian dollars on the new document.

To guarantee the transfer of manual prices, the Unit Price (LCY) fields are left unchanged; they’re only recalculated when an invoice is posted to the project. In other words, the Unit Price (LCY) fields shown on WBS and budget lines are used for scheduling only.

On project ledger / usage entries and purchase documents#

At first glance, invoice currencies seem to have little to do with project usage.

However, even consumption entries include unit prices for services that need to be invoiced. This helps determine what to:

• Include when measuring project progress.
• Use for billing time & materials projects not related to a sales order line.

For this reason, the fields described in the following table have been added to project ledger entries.

Coming back to our earlier example, you now need a purchase invoice for an external resource. This requires creating a purchase order for a vendor you’ll pay in USD and procuring a service (rendered by the resource).

With the purchase linked to a WBS line, the work type is already known to the system. As a result, the unit price that must be budgeted on the purchase line is determined immediately based on the values shown on the WBS.

In our example, the price comes to CAD140. The system converts this price to local currency by retrieving the latest exchange rate, which is 1.4962 (while ignoring the vendor’s USD90 unit cost).

It therefore enters 93.57 into the Unit Price (LCY) field; at the rate that you’ve specified on the associated budget line (1.5), the amount would have been a bit lower, that is, 93.33.

Before you post the purchase order, however, you alter the budget rate on the Currency Exchange Rates page to 1.3.

This creates a project usage entry regardless of whether you now choose Post or Post and Print on the ribbon.

Variations in price between the date of order fulfillment and that of invoicing only affect unit costs but not budgeted revenue.

A look at the new project ledger entry shows usage billed at the expected unit price of CAD140, which—at a rate of 1.30—works out to 107.69. The latter price isn’t on the invoice, however, where it is kept at CAD140.

In payment plans#

Like sales documents, payment plans use project-specific currencies.

Following on from our earlier example, you set up a plan for the entire project. This copies the code from the Invoice Currency Code field on the project card to the payment plan, where it can no longer be changed.

On invoice suggestions#

If a payment plan is available, an invoice suggestion that you create for it will include every line of the plan until all of them are posted as billed in full.

Only after creating a final invoice for billing a project can you turn invoices created from a payment plan into new credit memos.

For receiving a suggestion:

1. Choose the Search icon, enter Invoice Suggestion, and then choose the related link.
2. On the ribbon, choose Create Suggestion Lines.

On the request page, you can set filters to limit the number of suggestions. For example, you can filter for a specific project here.

Lines related to payment plans can only be copied to direct invoices.

1. Open the relevant invoice suggestion.
2. Select the Direct Invoice checkbox on the lines you want to bill.
3. On the ribbon, choose Actions > Create Invoice to create a partial invoice.

The invoice currency used for the project is then included in the suggestion and the direct invoice. Additionally, the current exchange rate is applied to all amounts on the invoice.