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. The pair nets to zero at the rate your bank applied; valued at the official reference rate a small difference remains, and that difference is what the Currency exchange account collects.
- 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
Two different rates matter, and Financica keeps them apart.
The rate you actually got. When money is converted, your bank or payment processor used a real rate that includes their spread. Financica records that rate on the exchange legs and never replaces it with a market rate.
The reference rate. To express a foreign-currency figure in your reporting currency, Financica uses the European Central Bank reference rate. Rates are stored once and never re-fetched, so a report you run twice gives the same answer. If a date falls on a weekend or holiday, the most recent prior business day's rate applies.
A handful of currencies have no ECB reference rate at all. Financica never guesses one: those amounts stay in their own currency and the report says which currency it could not convert.
The Currency exchange account
Your chart of accounts contains an account named Currency exchange that Financica manages for you. Every conversion passes through it: it holds the paired exchange legs described above, one per currency.
A balance on this account is normal. Your bank converts at its own rate, which includes a spread; reports value amounts at the official reference rate. The small difference between the two stays on this account with every conversion, so over time it accumulates a real exchange gain or loss.
You do not need to do anything with that balance. The statutory statements Financica prepares for filing (such as the Belgian annual accounts) recognize it in your result automatically, as an exchange gain or loss rather than as equity. There is nothing to book at the year end to move it.
This is a different thing from the exchange difference on paying a foreign currency invoice, which is booked to dedicated exchange gain and loss accounts at the moment of payment. See invoice posting and reconciliation for that flow.
How reports convert foreign currency
Every figure is converted at the rate of its own date. A cost incurred in August is worth what August's rate said, not what December's says. This applies to the balance sheet as much as the income statement, and it is what makes both sides of your balance sheet agree.
Any total that includes converted foreign currency is marked with a dotted underline. Hover it to see the per-currency breakdown and the rate applied. If a reference rate was unavailable, the original per-currency amounts are shown instead.
Tax returns work the same way, with one difference: they are filed in a single currency, so a foreign-currency invoice is converted at the reference rate for the date the tax became chargeable. If a currency has no reference rate, the affected invoices are listed as excluded rather than counted at the wrong value, so you can see exactly what was left out before you file.
Foreign currency revaluation
Converting at each entry's own date means a foreign-currency balance you still hold is carried at what it was worth when it arrived, not what it is worth today. For a bank balance or an unpaid invoice, those differ, and the gap is a gain or loss you have not yet realized.
Revaluation closes that gap. Preview it from the year-end close to see each foreign balance, what it is carried at, and what it is worth at the closing rate. Posting it records the difference as an exchange gain or loss, and your balance sheet then shows current values.
- Nothing is written until you post it. A posted revaluation can be undone, which restores the previous carrying values, unless the period has since been closed.
- Only monetary balances are revalued: bank accounts, receivables, payables, loans. A foreign-currency fixed asset keeps its original value.
- Running it again later works out what is already recorded and posts only the remaining difference, so a second run does not double count.
- Not every country permits booking an unrealized gain. Financica applies your country's rule and says so on the preview row when a gain has been left out. The loss side is always recorded.
Your accounts still show the currency they hold
The revaluation records the difference alongside the balance instead of converting it. A dollar account still reads as dollars on the accounts page and on the dashboard, and still reconciles against your bank statement. The converted value appears on the balance sheet and in your annual accounts.
There is nothing to reverse in the new year. The difference stays on the books, and the next revaluation posts only the movement since the last one.
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.