Choosing your base and ledger currencies

Pennyweight asks for a currency at three points: your base currency when you set up your account, a currency for each ledger you create, and one for each account. You can't change the first two later, so pick them with care. For how mixed currencies show up in totals, see accounts and totals in more than one currency.

What each currency controls

• Base currency. You pick it during setup. Your default ledger, Personal, uses it. So does any new ledger your AI creates when you don't name a currency.
• Ledger currency. Every manual account you add to the ledger takes this currency unless you give the account its own. Budget limits in the ledger are set in it.
• Account currency. A manual account takes the currency you give it, or its ledger's. A linked bank account takes the currency its bank reports.
• Display currency. Totals that combine your ledgers, such as your net worth, are converted into it. It starts as your base currency, and you can change it at any time. See choose the currency for totals across ledgers.

Pennyweight never converts the amounts it stores. A total inside one ledger that spans currencies comes back as one figure per currency. A total that combines your ledgers also gets one figure in your display currency.

How to do it

1. Choose your base currency during setup. On step 1 of the setup wizard, under Base currency, pick from the list or choose Other currency… and type a three-letter ISO code. It starts on USD. Pick the currency most of your accounts and budgets will be in. See create your account and passphrase.
2. Choose a ledger's currency when you create it. Name the currency when you ask your AI for the ledger, for example a trip ledger in EUR. If you don't name one, your AI uses your base currency. In the web app, Settings → Ledgers → Add a Ledger has a Currency picker. See create a ledger.
3. Give an account its own currency only when it differs from its ledger. In the web app's Add manually form, the Currency field starts on the chosen ledger's currency. See add a manual account. Add a credit card or loan through your AI instead, in any currency: the form stores the balance exactly as you type it, so what you owe would show as a positive balance. See track a credit card or loan you can't link.

What you'll see

When your AI creates a ledger, it confirms the currency it used. In Settings → Ledgers, each ledger shows its type and currency in the list, and its detail view has a Currency row. Each account's detail view under Settings → Accounts shows its Currency too.

Good to know

• Base and ledger currencies are permanent. The setup wizard says the base currency "can't be changed later". There is no way to change a ledger's currency after you create it.
• Account currencies have no change option either. Neither your AI nor the web app offers one, so set the currency when you add the account.
• The web form starts on USD. The Add a Ledger form in the web app starts on USD, whatever your base currency is. Change it before you select Create ledger. Your AI uses your base currency instead.
• Check a typed code. Under Other currency…, the picker tells you when it doesn't recognize a code. During setup, an unrecognized code is saved as USD, so fix it before you continue. Ledgers and accounts refuse a code that isn't a real currency.
• Budgets compare in their ledger's currency. When the spending a budget tracks is in another currency, the budget shows that spending per currency and doesn't say whether you're over or under.
• A ledger per currency. If part of your money lives in another currency, such as a trip or a business abroad, a ledger in that currency gives its new manual accounts that currency by default.
• Bank linking covers US banks only. Track an account anywhere else as a manual account in its own currency. See using Pennyweight anywhere else.
• If a total still looks off, see totals look wrong.