# Multi-currency accounts > Work in multiple currencies — set foreign-currency accounts, manage exchange rates, and understand what revalues at period-end. Source: https://www.accountfun.com/docs/guides/multi-currency/ AccountFUN supports true multi-currency bookkeeping: any balance-sheet account (bank, loan, accounts receivable control, accounts payable control, accruals) can be assigned a foreign currency. Invoices, bills, payments, transfers, and manual journals all carry the source currency and exchange rate on every line, so your books stay audit-ready even when transactions span currencies. ## How currency works in AccountFUN Every journal entry line stores two things: * **Base-currency amount** — the debit or credit in your organization’s functional currency (e.g. USD). This is what your financial statements use. * **Source currency + exchange rate** — the original transaction currency (e.g. EUR) and the rate applied at posting time. This means the original foreign amount is always recoverable as `base amount / exchange rate`, and every line is traceable back to its source document. ## Set up foreign-currency accounts ### Enable currencies Go to **Settings -> Currencies** to add the currencies your organization trades in. Your base currency is locked at organization creation and cannot be changed. ### Assign currency to an account When creating a new account under **Chart of Accounts -> New**, you’ll see a currency selector. Choose any enabled currency. Currency is permanent The currency you choose at creation **cannot be changed later**. This is a deliberate design decision — changing an account’s currency after transactions exist would require re-translating every historical entry at a different rate, breaking your audit trail. If you pick the wrong currency, create a new account with the correct currency and repoint future transactions to it. ### Which accounts can be foreign currency? Only **balance-sheet account types** can hold a foreign currency: * Bank accounts * Current assets (e.g. receivables, prepayments) * Fixed assets and intangible assets * Inventory * Current liabilities (e.g. payables, accruals) * Long-term liabilities (e.g. loans) Revenue, expense, and equity accounts are always in your base currency. This is not a product limitation — it’s an accounting standard requirement explained below. ## Exchange rates AccountFUN automatically fetches daily reference rates from the European Central Bank (ECB) and caches them. Rates are fetched once per day after the ECB publishes (around 16:00 Central European Time). Full details on currencies & rates For the complete list of supported currencies, how ECB rates are sourced and triangulated, and exactly how **weekends and holidays** are handled (no new rate is published — the most recent business day’s rate carries forward), see [Currencies & exchange rates](https://www.accountfun.com/docs/guides/currencies/). ### Override a rate If the system rate doesn’t match what your bank actually charged, you can override it: 1. Go to **Settings -> Currencies -> Exchange Rates**. 2. Find the date and currency pair. 3. Enter your rate and save. The override takes precedence over the ECB rate for that date across all transactions. ### Per-transaction rates When creating an invoice, bill, or credit note in a foreign currency, you can set a custom exchange rate on the document itself. This overrides both the ECB rate and the org-wide override for that specific transaction. ## Understanding monetary vs. non-monetary accounts When you assign a foreign currency to an account, you may be asked whether the account is **monetary** or **non-monetary**. This classification comes from IAS 21 (The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates) and determines whether the account’s balance is revalued at each period-end. ### Monetary accounts (revalued) Monetary accounts represent a right to receive or obligation to deliver a fixed amount of currency. They are **revalued** at the closing exchange rate each period-end: * Bank accounts * Accounts receivable (AR) control accounts * Accounts payable (AP) control accounts * Loans and borrowings * Accruals (cash-settled) * Lease liabilities When you’ll be asked You only need to set the monetary flag when the account type is **ambiguous** — for example, a Current Asset could be a receivable (monetary) or a prepayment (non-monetary). Bank, inventory, fixed asset, and equity types have safe defaults and won’t prompt you. ### Non-monetary accounts (not revalued) Non-monetary accounts represent things that are not settled in cash, or items measured at historical cost. They **keep their original transaction-date rate** and are never revalued: * Fixed assets and intangible assets * Inventory * Prepayments * Equity * Deferred income ## Why P\&L accounts are base-currency only Under IAS 21.23(b), income and expense items are classified as **non-monetary items carried at historical cost**. They are recognized at the exchange rate on the date of the transaction and are **never retranslated** at subsequent reporting dates. This means a foreign currency on a revenue or expense account has no accounting effect — the base-currency amount already recorded is correct and final. Assigning a foreign currency to such an account would suggest a “foreign balance” that is actually a meaningless mix of transactions at different historical rates. ### What still works Even though P\&L accounts are base-currency, the source currency information is preserved on every journal entry line. The **General Ledger Transactions** report shows the source currency, exchange rate, and base amount for each line. ## Common scenarios ### Invoicing in a foreign currency 1. Create an invoice and select the foreign currency (e.g. EUR) in the currency field. 2. Enter line items in EUR. The system converts to your base currency at the rate you choose (ECB default, org override, or per-transaction custom rate). 3. When the invoice is approved, the journal entry posts the revenue and AR in your base currency, with the EUR source currency and rate tagged on every line. Customer pays in a different currency? If you invoice in one currency but the customer settles in another (e.g. invoice in USD, paid in HKD), set a [settlement currency](https://www.accountfun.com/docs/guides/settlement-currency/) on the invoice or the customer. The documents the customer sees are converted; the invoice itself and your ledger stay in the invoice currency. ### Paying a foreign-currency supplier 1. Record a bill payment from a bank account in a different currency. 2. The system calculates any realized foreign exchange gain or loss (the difference between the bill’s posting rate and the payment rate). 3. The gain or loss posts automatically to the Realized FX account. Want the full FX picture? For a plain-English explanation of realized vs. unrealized FX gains and losses — what they are, why they’re calculated, and worked examples — see [FX gains & losses](https://www.accountfun.com/docs/concepts/fx-gains-and-losses/). ### Transferring between foreign-currency bank accounts 1. Use **Transfer Money** between two bank accounts with different currencies. 2. You’ll be prompted to confirm the exchange rate. 3. Both legs of the transfer are posted in your base currency, with each account’s currency tagged on its respective line. ## Workarounds for advanced use cases ### Source document auditing Auditors who need to verify the original foreign amount (e.g. a EUR 100 software subscription) against a physical receipt can use the **General Ledger Transactions** report. Each line displays: * The source currency (EUR) * The exchange rate applied * The base-currency amount The original foreign amount is `base amount / exchange rate`, visible alongside the base amount. No foreign-currency account is needed — the audit trail lives in the journal entry line metadata. ### Intercompany allocations When a parent company pays an expense in a foreign currency and needs to charge it back to a subsidiary in the same currency: 1. Create **Due To / Due From** clearing accounts (Current Liability or Current Asset type) with the foreign currency and `isMonetary = true`. 2. The parent posts the expense to the base-currency P\&L account and the intercompany charge to the foreign-currency clearing account. 3. The subsidiary receives the charge on their foreign-currency Due To account. These clearing accounts are balance-sheet monetary items — they correctly hold foreign-currency balances and revalue at each period-end per IAS 21. ### Multi-currency tax tracking For jurisdictions that require foreign-currency VAT/GST/Sales Tax reporting: 1. Set the **Tax Payable** account (a Current Liability) to the foreign currency with `isMonetary = true`. 2. Tax amounts on invoices and bills already carry the source currency and exchange rate on every journal entry line. The tax payable account is a balance-sheet type and is allowed to hold a foreign currency. The tax lines carry source-currency metadata regardless of the account’s currency setting. ### Reporting by currency segment To see departmental or segment-level activity broken down by currency: 1. Use **Tracking Categories** to tag transactions by currency segment (e.g. “EU Market”, “UK Market”). 2. Filter the **General Ledger Transactions** report by the line-level currency field to see all EUR-denominated activity. This gives the same visibility a foreign-currency revenue account would provide, without mixing transactions at different historical exchange rates into a single balance.