Facilitate reconciliation of bank accounts that are dominated in a different currency than the base/office accounting currency
This feature requires that all transactions posted to a ‘Foreign Currency’ bank account are posted as either Supplier Payments or Receipts – Journals and other transaction types entered against these accounts will be ignored.
Note that this feature will not work retrospectively – if an existing foreign currency bank account (GL Account) already has historic transactions assigned to it, then the following steps are a simple way to commence using the bank reconciliation feature for such accounts at the next month end:
For the sake of clarity, these steps are explained using an example:
Let’s assume we have a USD bank account, with a GL account number and name ‘123367 – Grand National Bank - USD Account’ and that our local accounting currency is AUD.
Let’s assume this account has a closing balance of USD 100,000 as at the end of the current accounting month. Note that you must select an accounting month which is the latest month that transactions have been posted to that GL account – so for example if the account is currently reconciled to the end of month 06, year 2015 and there are no transactions posted to this GL/Bank account for month 07 and beyond – our “starting point/month” would be 06/2015.
Step 1- Calculate the Opening balance FX Rate:
So there is a statement balance in the account of USD 100,000 – now run the trial balance as at the end of month 06/2015, let’s assume the GL balance of the account (in our local accounting currency of AUD) is 125,000.
We calculate the Opening Balance FX rate then as 0.80 (being 100,000 divided by 125,000)
Step 2- Renumber and rename the existing GL account:
- Re-number the account ‘123367’ to ‘123367x’
- Re-name the account ‘Grand National Bank – USD Account’ to ‘Grand National Bank – USD Account – Do Not Use’
Step 3- Create a new GL account:
- Assign as account number ‘123367’
- Assign the account name ‘Grand National Bank – USD Account’
- Assign this account as a ‘Bank Account’ – and assign the ‘Bank Account Currency’ as USD…
Step 4 – Enter the Opening balance Receipt:
- Create a new Receipt:
- Assign to a sundry/miscellaneous Client
- Assign Accounting Month/Year as 06/2015
- Assign the date according to the last calendar day of accounting month 06/2015
- Select the Receipt Bank Account as ‘123367’
- Set the Receipt Currency as USD and FX Rate as 0.80
- Add a ‘Receipt Non Invoice Amount’ line for 100,000
- Code to GL Account Number ‘123367x’
- Enter a Description ‘Transfer balance to new GL Account’
- Make sure you enter the Tax as a zero value as this entry should not impact the tax reports/calculations
- Approve the Receipt
- The Accounting effect of this entry in the GL would be:
DR A/c ‘123367 – Grand National Bank – USD Account’ AUD 125,000
Cr A/c ‘123367x – Grand National Bank – USD Account – Do not use’ AUD 125,000
Step 5 – ‘Present’ the opening balance Receipt:
Go to Accounting/ General Ledger/ Bank Reconciliation:
- Select the Bank Account ‘123367 – Grand National Bank – USD Account’
- Check/select the Receipt Transaction for USD 100,000
- Click ‘Present’ and accept the date as the same date as the receipt
- Assign the Bank Statement Date according to the last calendar day of accounting month 06/2015
- Enter the Bank Statement Balance of 100,000
Step 6- De-activate the ‘old’ GL Account:
Go to Accounting/ General Ledger/ General Ledger Accounts/ Search General Ledger Accounts:
- Select the old Bank Account (e.g. ‘123367x – Grand National Bank – USD Account – Do Not Use’
- Make the GL Account Inactive and Save, to ensure this account is not used in future.