Multi-currency transactions

When your business deals with multiple currencies -- receiving payments in USD, paying suppliers in GBP, or settling Stripe charges across currencies -- Financica records the full currency detail rather than collapsing everything into a single amount.

How multi-currency transactions are structured

A multi-currency transaction typically has four types of legs:

• Bank leg -- The amount that actually moved in your bank account, in your settlement or account currency (e.g. EUR).
• Exchange legs -- A pair of legs on the Currency Exchange account that represent the conversion: one in your bank's currency, one in the foreign currency. These always net to zero in accounting terms.
• Category leg -- The amount in the original foreign currency (e.g. USD), which you categorize to the appropriate income or expense account. This is the leg that links to invoices denominated in that currency.
• Fee legs -- Any conversion fees charged by the bank or payment processor, in your bank's currency.

This structure preserves the original amounts and currencies throughout your books. For example, a $500 USD payment that settles as EUR 460 shows the full $500 on the category leg, with exchange legs bridging the two currencies.

Where multi-currency transactions come from

Stripe

When a customer pays in a different currency than your Stripe settlement currency, Financica automatically creates the multi-currency structure during import. Stripe provides the exchange rate and original charge details on every cross-currency balance transaction -- no configuration is needed.

Bank imports

If your bank provides foreign currency transaction details in its statements or feeds, Financica preserves them during import.

Manual entry

When categorizing a transaction, you can change the currency of a leg to record cross-currency movements manually. Financica creates the exchange legs automatically.

Exchange rates

Financica records the actual exchange rate used for each transaction as reported by your bank or payment processor. These are not indicative market rates -- they reflect the real rate at which the conversion happened, including any spread.

Multi-currency in reports

All reports can display multi-currency data:

• Balance sheet and trial balance -- Accounts that hold foreign currency balances show amounts in their original currency alongside the equivalent in your default currency.
• Income statement -- Revenue and expenses are shown in your default currency, converted at the transaction-level exchange rates.
• VAT returns -- VAT amounts are always in your organization's default currency, converted at the rate recorded on each transaction.

Tips

• Invoice linking -- When linking a bank transaction to a foreign currency invoice, Financica matches on the category leg's currency and amount, not the bank leg. This means a EUR bank receipt can correctly link to a USD invoice if the transaction has the right exchange structure.
• Stripe fees -- Stripe's currency conversion fees are recorded as separate fee legs so they do not distort your revenue or expense amounts.
• Reconciliation -- The AI assistant understands multi-currency transactions and can help identify unreconciled foreign currency movements.