Exchange Rate Issue

Sep 20, 2007 4 Replies

I'm a US based consultant and have just acquired a client in Canada. I will bill them in USD. They will convert the amount of my bill to CAD and send me a check, which my bank will convert back to USD when they credit my account.



This will certainly lead to some small difference, positive or negative, between the amount shown on my invoice and the amount paid by the client.



Is there any means in QB that I can use to show that the original invoice is fully paid, even if the amount received is not exactly the same as that billed?


-- Vic Roberts Replace xxx with vdr in e-mail address.


Set up an account "Exchange rate gains & losses", and a payment item, and credit difference to that account and debit item to payment, or vice-versa according to gain/loss.

Look at the balance of the gains & losses account at the end of, say, a year, and if not roughly zero then you should maybe adapt your prices in future, up or down.

My prices for labor are fixed in round numbers of USD per hour. It would not be reasonable to adjust those in increments of a few pennies. My reimbursable expenses are exactly the same as I paid for those items. I also will probably not have this client for more than 1 year.

I guess I could go back to the original invoice for each month and change the cost of the labor to make each invoice match the payment received after it has been converted back to USD, but I was looking for a nicer way.

-- Vic Roberts Replace xxx with vdr in e-mail address.

I would not wait till the end of the year or change cost of labor. When or if the money hits your bank, you will need to book two things, the bank fee (Expense) and then what is left over from the expected dollars, which will be the "Exchange rate gains & losses" (Revenue).

Because of the foreign and domestic policies of our Beloved Leader, it is likely that the US Dollar will continue to shrink in comparison to the Canadian Dollar. So, expect a gain in revenue.

This seems like a workable idea.

BTW - My bank says they do not impose a fee on Canadian checks. They say they just do the conversion at published rates. We shall see.

I will probably not see a gain from the ever falling US dollar. I submit my expenses in USD and the rate does fluctuate up and down a small amount each day in spite of the overall trend.

-- Vic Roberts Replace xxx with vdr in e-mail address.

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