The Currencies table is used to store currency information from different countries, such as the name of the currency, symbol, and exchange rate, or currency rate. If records in another table need to use information for more than one currency, this allows you to link to the desired Currency record and pull in any necessary information.

Depending on how your system is configured, you can use the Currencies table in several different ways. For instance, if you are buying products from several different areas of the world, you may want to display the product's price in the local currency. In this case, you could create a numeric field and link to the currency symbol to display it in the current record. If you were to simply use a Currency field in the current record, you would be limited to a single currency symbol.

Another way to use the table is to use the Currency Rate field and another numeric field to calculate the amount of a third field in your local currency. We'll discuss this more in the use case below.

Update the Currency Rate

The currency rate is updated by a rule that runs daily and finds records where the Currency Rate field is empty or the Currency Last Updated field is greater than or equal to 23 hours old. By default, the rule is disabled and the Currency Last Updated field is blank, but the Currency Rate field contains a historical value in all the records.

For the rule to set the current currency rate, you must enable the rule.

Use Case

In certain situations, you might have contracts with companies that use currencies different from your own. For example, if you work for an American company using the American dollar, you might have a contract with a European company that uses the Euro. In this case, the contract might be established using the Euro, but for internal purposes you want to know the exchange rate to the American dollar. With the help of the Currencies table, you can calculate this exchange rate from within the contract.

To calculate the exchange rate from EUR to USD for a contract amount:

1. As mentioned in the previous section, enable the rule in the Currencies table and update the Currency Rate field to the latest exchange rate.
2. In the Contracts table, create a linked set to the Currencies table that links to the Currency Code and Currency Rate fields.
   1. Do not allow the fields to hold multiple values.
   2. If desired, set a default value.
   3. Display the Currency Code field as a List of values. Display the Currency Rate as Hyperlinked View only.
3. Create a Calculated Result field called Adjusted Contract Amount or similar.
   1. For the formula, multiply the Contract Amount field by the Currency Rate field.
   2. Round the data to 2 decimal digits.
   3. Set Grouping to Yes.
   4. Display the field with a "$" before the number.
4. Edit the Contract Amount field so that it doesn't display a currency symbol.
5. Place the Currency Code and Adjusted Contract Amount fields on the layout near the Contract Amount field.
6. Open a contract and select EUR from the Currency Code field. The Adjusted Contract Amount field is automatically updated to USD using the latest exchange rate.