Using Dollars + Euros

Q:

Subject: Invoicing in EUROs

 

Hi Kerry,

 

I'm supposed to start invoicing my client in EUROs instead of USD. I've noticed that QB doesn't support that in any straight way. Do you have any recommendations how to handle that?

 

thanks

A:

That is a tricky situation.  I've been checking out the message boards around the web to see if there is a way to handle multiple currencies in the same QB data file.  I've seen some mention of multiple currency capabilities in the UK version of QB, but none in the USA version.  I've sent a comment to the official Intuit QuickBooks feedback folks to see what they suggest for a company having to work with more than one currency.  I'll let you know what they say.

I've been trying to think of a way for you to work with this and the only thing I can come up with is to have two separate QBW files; one for the banking checks and deposits that I will use for the tax returns, and another for billing your customers if you like how QB does that.  Since your taxes are on the Cash basis of accounting, the invoices sent out really aren't relevant for tax purposes.  We just need to work with how much has been actually received.  We will obviously need to work with one currency for this, which may mean manual conversions to US dollars for money that you keep in Euros.

You also have the option to do your invoicing with an alternative program that is more suited to Euros.  I understand that such things as VAT are not handled well by QB, so there is probably a program that is more capable of billing for that.  While I have tried to use the QB invoicing for my CPA work so as to better synch up with my bookkeeping, I have never liked how it's handled; so I use a completely separate program, TimeSlips, for all of our billing and then post the actual money received into QB.  It's not as efficient as having everything inside one software package; but it's really not that much more work with the average of around one client check received each day.  Your volume of payments received shouldn't be so high as to make it an unworkable burden.

I hope this helps at least a little bit.  If I come up with any more ideas, I'll pass them along. 

Happy New Year; which you've already beat us to.

Kerry