Discover Multiple Currency Settings

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Add new currencies to your org.
Summarize the impact of using single currency versus multiple currencies.
Set up Advanced Currency Management.
Edit conversion rates, and enable users to select personal currencies.

Follow Along with Trail Together

Want to follow along with an expert as you work through this step? Take a look at this video, part of the Trail Together series.

(This clip starts at the 8:25 minute mark, in case you want to rewind and watch the beginning of the step again.)

Managing Currencies

Whether you live the intriguing life of an international spy, or you’re in a slightly less exciting 9-to-5 situation, understanding the value of deals is a top priority. In Salesforce, you can specify which currencies your organization uses, and individual users can apply specific currencies to their settings based on where they do business.

By default, Salesforce organizations use a single currency. Once you set the required currency locale in your company settings, all currency values on records display in that currency.

As the admin for your organization, you set that “corporate currency,” which reflects the currency of your corporate headquarters. You also maintain the list of active currencies and their conversion rates relative to the corporate currency. (More on handling conversion rates later.)

Mom & Pop’s Spy Shop was single currency when they started using Salesforce, and were only dealing with United States–based clients. So when their admin set up the company settings, they set their default locale and currency locale as English (United States). They did business only in the United States so transactions were reported solely in USD.

Mom & Pop’s Spy Shop

But after being acquired by the Nacho Secrets Agency, Mom & Pop’s began to take on an international clientele. It was time to move from a single to a multicurrency setup. Doing so is pretty painless (and doesn’t involve any stealthy spy tools). But a word of warning—once a multicurrency setup is enabled, it can’t be disabled.

To enable and apply multiple currencies:

From Setup, in the Quick Find, search for Company Information, then select Company Information.
Click Edit.
Check Activate Multiple Currencies.
Click Save.

Once multiple currencies is enabled you also:

Activate additional currencies and optionally select a new corporate currency.
Ensure users have correct personal currencies.
Make sure users use the correct currency when creating records.

We walk through some of these steps here, but see the Resources section for more details.

Activate Currencies

Once you activate multicurrency for your org, you can specify which currencies are supported by activating or deactivating them. No covert intelligence skills required, just a few clicks:

From Setup, enter Company Information and click Company Information.
Click the Currency Setup button. The Active and Inactive Currencies will be listed out.
In Active Currencies, click New.
Select a Currency Type. Currencies are alphabetized using their ISO currency codes.
Enter the conversion rate relative to your corporate currency. (More on conversion rates coming up.)
Specify the number of decimal places to display for amounts in this currency.
Click Save.

To activate a currency from the list of inactive currencies, click Activate next to the currency. To deactivate one, click Deactivate and then OK. (Note: You can’t deactivate the corporate currency.)

Deactivating a currency does not alter amounts in items that use that currency, but your users are no longer able to enter new amounts using the inactive currency. And deactivating a currency that’s set as a user’s personal currency automatically resets the user’s currency to the corporate currency.

Set Your Corporate Currency

You can opt for a new corporate currency as soon as it’s configured if you need to relocate in a hurry.

From Setup, enter Company Information and click Company Information.
Click Currency Setup.
In the Active Currencies list, click Change Corporate.
Select your new corporate currency from the dropdown. Only currencies that have been added and are active are available.
Click Save.

Update Conversion Rates

Ensure all the secret agents in your global organization use up-to-date currency values for deals by editing conversion rates. This lets you manage the static exchange rates between your active and inactive currencies and the corporate currency.

These exchange rates apply to all currency fields used in your org. Here are the steps for editing rates:

From Setup, enter Company Information and click Company Information.
Click Currency setup.
In the Active Currencies or Inactive Currencies list, click Edit Rates.
Enter the conversion rate between each currency and your corporate currency.
Click Save.

List of conversion rates for active and inactive currencies

Your currency amounts update using the new rates.

Note: Previous conversion rates are not stored and all conversions within opportunities, forecasts, and other amounts use the current conversion rate.

Implement Advanced Currency Management

While standard conversion rate control is straightforward, it impacts current and closed deals. For accurate historical record keeping, it’s best to avoid impacting the value of completed business. Advanced Currency Management for currency fields on opportunities and opportunity products lets you manage exchange rate start dates.

Let’s check out an example:

On January 1, you update the exchange rate to 1 USD = 0.9464 EUR.
On February 1, you change the exchange rate to 1 USD = 0.9353 EUR.

So which rate is used for your opportunities?

Opportunities that close...	Use this rate...
Between January 1 and February 1	The first exchange rate (1 = 0.9464)
After February 1	The second exchange rate (1 = 0.9353)

Once you’re set up for multicurrency, there are few simple steps needed to enable advanced currency management:

From Setup, enter Company Information and click Company Information.
Click Currency Setup.
Under Advanced Currency Management is not enabled, click Enable.
When prompted, select Yes, I want to enable Advanced Currency Management and click Enable.
If you receive a pop-up message that reads: Navigate to this page? Click the Open button.

When advanced currency management is first enabled, your existing exchange rates automatically become the first set of dated exchange rates. These rates are valid for all time, until you define another set of exchange rates.

When advanced currency management is enabled, Visualforce <apex:inputField> and <apex:outputField> components cannot display currency fields.

Add Personal Currencies

Once multicurrency is enabled, currencies are activated, and conversion rates are edited, instruct your users at Mom & Pop’s to add personal currencies to their profiles. Now they can correctly track their new work (and get paid).

Reminder that this is located in the Personal Settings:

Click your profile image at the top of the page and click Settings.
In the Quick Find, enter Language, then select Language & Time Zone.
Update the Currency field, and click Save.

Since Pop is devoting all his time to a long-term, top-secret case for a client in Luxembourg, he sets his currency to EUR-Euro so his transactions are reported in euros. Meanwhile, Mom does clandestine work for clients in multiple countries, so she leaves the currency on her personal settings page as USD-U.S. Dollar and manages each account’s currency individually.

Every user in the company has their own currency

Now each user in their agency has a personal currency. It is used as the default currency in quotas, forecasts (depending on which forecasting version they use—see the resources section for more help), opportunities, quotes, and reports.

Doing business in a currency familiar to users and customers removes an unnecessary hurdle (and keeps us away from calculators). When your global operation sets up multiple currencies, conversion rate control, and personal currencies, you free up your agents to focus on the work itself, not the value of the dollar that day.

And now that you’ve gathered all the intel on currencies and company settings configuration, you can tackle the important work of updating your org to run more efficiently.