Avaza works with two kinds of currency: one currency for your own account, and a currency for each customer. You can bill every customer in their own currency, and Avaza saves an exchange rate with each transaction so your reports can still show totals in your account currency.
Your account currency
Your account currency is the Default Currency in Settings › General, first chosen when the account was created. Administrators and Finance Managers can change it on that page. Avaza uses it:
- as the starting currency for each new customer;
- for internal projects, which belong to your own company;
- as the base of every exchange rate, for example 1 USD = 1.5 AUD;
- in reports and dashboards that total amounts across customers.
You can only change the account currency before the first invoice, credit note, payment or bill is created. After that, saving a new currency shows "Cannot update account's base currency as transactions have been created".
Customer currencies
Each customer has a Currency, in the Financial Details you fill in when you add them. It starts as your account currency, so change it when you add a customer you bill in another currency. To change it later, open the company's Details and click Edit next to Financial Details.
The customer's currency applies to everything you do for them:
- Projects: a project has no currency of its own. Its budget, billable and cost rates and fixed amounts are all in the customer's currency, which Project Settings shows next to the customer's name.
- Estimates, invoices, credit notes and payments: each takes the customer's currency, and you can't choose another one on the form. Recurring invoices and retainers do the same.
You can't change a customer's currency once they have invoices, credit notes, payments, estimates or expenses in a different currency. Avaza then shows, for example, "Cannot change currency as there are transactions against this customer". Your own company's currency always follows the account currency.
Rates on foreign-currency projects
A person's Default Billing Rate and Default Cost Rate on their contact record are copied to a project as plain numbers when they join it. Avaza doesn't convert them. On a project for a customer in another currency, check each person's Billable Rate and Cost Rate on the project's Members tab. See cost rates and billable rates.
Moving a project to a customer with a different currency doesn't convert anything either: the same numbers are read in the new currency. See changing a project's customer.
Exchange rates on invoices and estimates
When a customer's currency differs from your account currency, the invoice or estimate shows the rate next to the currency, for example 1 USD = 1.5 AUD. Avaza fills in the Market Rate from OpenExchangeRates.org for the issue date. Click Edit Rate to enter your own rate instead. The rate is saved with the transaction, and reports use it to convert the amount to your account currency. See currency conversion in reports.
Expenses in any currency
You can record an expense in any currency: choose it next to the Amount. Avaza remembers the last currency you used. It looks up the exchange rate for the date in the form when you choose the currency, so set the date first. You can change the rate with the pencil icon. Once the expense is invoiced, its currency and rate can't be changed. See entering expenses in foreign currencies.
When you add a billable expense to an invoice, Avaza converts it to the customer's currency. See how Avaza converts expenses.
Supplier bills start in the supplier's currency, and you can change it on the bill.
See what each customer owes
- Invoices list: the totals under the list show Total Paid and Total Balance for each currency.
- Dashboards: on a company's dashboard, the Unpaid Invoices widget shows what that customer owes in their currency. On the Account Dashboard, the same widget converts every balance to your account currency.
- Reports: the Invoice Aging report can show balances in each customer's currency or converted to your account currency.