Period-end FX revaluation

If your business holds money in a foreign currency (a EUR bank account on USD/HKD books, a USD loan, etc.), its value in your home currency drifts every day as exchange rates move. AccountFUN tracks that drift automatically: every monetary foreign-currency account is revalued to the current exchange rate on your reports, and the difference is shown as an unrealized FX gain or loss across two accounts: 860 Unrealized FX Gain/Loss (for outstanding invoices/bills — AR/AP) and 870 Bank Revaluation Gain/Loss (for held monetary balances like bank, cash, and loan accounts). You don’t run anything — it’s always live.

This guide explains what’s happening behind those numbers and when they matter. For the underlying concepts (realized vs. unrealized FX), see FX gains & losses.

The one-paragraph version

You have a EUR bank account, but your books are in HKD. When you record each transaction you write down an HKD value using that day’s rate. Rates change daily, so AccountFUN revalues the account to today’s rate on every report, so the balance sheet always shows what those accounts are actually worth today. The difference is shown as an FX gain or loss.

A simple example

On Jan 1 you deposit €1,000 into your EUR account. The rate that day is 1 EUR = 8.5 HKD, so your books record:

EUR bank account:  €1,000  →  HKD 8,500

By Mar 31 the euro has weakened to 1 EUR = 8.0 HKD. Your €1,000 is now worth only HKD 8,000. Without revaluation, your balance sheet would still claim you hold HKD 8,500 — a HKD 500 overstatement. The live revaluation corrects it on every report:

EUR bank account:      HKD 8,500  →  HKD 8,000   (shown at today's closing rate)
Unrealized FX loss:               HKD   −500     (the drop, shown in P&L)

The euros in the bank haven’t changed — only their HKD “translation.” If the rate had risen to 9.0, you’d see a HKD 500 gain instead.

Where to see it

Because unrealized FX is live, the same revalued figures appear across your reports — there is no separate step to run:

Place	What you see
Balance Sheet	Foreign-currency monetary accounts (banks, loans, AR, AP) shown at the closing rate, with the FX folded into current-year earnings so the sheet always balances
Profit & Loss	Two lines under Other Income: 860 Unrealized FX Gain/Loss (AR/AP) and 870 Bank Revaluation Gain/Loss (bank/cash/loan)
Trial Balance	Monetary foreign-currency accounts at their revalued (closing-rate) balance
Realized / Unrealized FX (AR/AP) + Bank Revaluation reports	The detailed views: per-document (outstanding invoice/bill) and per-account (bank/cash/loan) FX exposure, with the rates used

The Bank Revaluation report is the best place to review your held-balance exposure at any date, and the Realized / Unrealized FX (AR/AP) report does the same for outstanding invoices/bills. Both support historical queries too, so you can see what your FX position was at a past year-end.

How it works behind the scenes

It’s a live calculation. AccountFUN takes each monetary foreign-currency account’s native balance, multiplies it by the closing exchange rate for the report’s date, and shows that revalued figure.
It uses the period-end (end-of-day) rate. The same end-of-day rate your reports use everywhere. It never uses a live or intraday rate.
It’s always current. Because it’s recomputed live, there’s nothing to re-run and no old adjustments to accumulate. Open a report for any date and you see the truthful value for that date.
Only monetary foreign-currency accounts are revalued. Home-currency accounts don’t drift, and non-monetary items (fixed assets, inventory) are carried at historical cost, per IAS 21. See Multi-currency for the monetary/non-monetary classification.

When it matters most

Run your reports at period-end — month-end, quarter-end, and especially year-end — to see your true position. Because the revaluation is live, your Balance Sheet, P&L, and Trial Balance are always period-end ready; the Realized / Unrealized FX (AR/AP) and Bank Revaluation reports are there so you can review the detail deliberately, especially before closing a period.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to do this for my home-currency accounts? No. Only accounts in a foreign currency (relative to your org’s base currency) drift. HKD accounts on HKD books always show their true value.

The bank-account transaction tab shows a different number than the Balance Sheet. The reports (Balance Sheet, P&L, Trial Balance) revalue automatically at the closing rate — they show the truthful value live. The bank-account transaction tab shows each transaction at the rate it was originally recorded (the correct historical treatment). The difference between the two is exactly the unrealized FX the report adds.

I clicked Accounts Receivable (or Payable) on the Balance Sheet and the transaction listing shows a different total. This is expected and is the same effect as above. AR and AP are monetary accounts, so the Balance Sheet revalues their outstanding foreign-currency portion to the closing rate — a ★ next to the figure flags the FX component. The transaction listing you drill into shows each invoice or bill at the rate it was originally posted, which is the correct historical record. The gap between the two numbers is exactly the unrealized FX the Balance Sheet has added on your outstanding foreign-currency documents. Open the Realized / Unrealized FX (AR/AP) report for the same as-of date to see the per-document breakdown that makes up the difference; the Bank Revaluation report does the same for held bank, cash, and loan balances.

I see “closing rate unavailable” on an account. That means AccountFUN couldn’t find an exchange rate for that currency on the report’s date. The account is shown un-revalued (no wrong number is presented). Add the rate on the Currencies & exchange rates page and re-open the report.

Where to next

FX gains & losses — the realized vs. unrealized concepts behind this, with full worked examples.
Multi-currency — setting up foreign-currency accounts and the monetary/non-monetary classification that drives which accounts get revalued.
Currencies & exchange rates — where the closing rates come from, and how to add or override a rate.
Reports — the Balance Sheet, P&L, and Unrealized FX reports where the live revaluation surfaces.