Accounts and totals in more than one currency

You can keep a euro account, a yen card and your dollar accounts in one place. Pennyweight stores every amount in its own currency and never changes it. Totals inside one ledger come back per currency. Totals that span your ledgers also come back as one figure in your display currency. For how workspaces and ledgers fit together, start with workspaces and ledgers.

Where a currency comes from

Each level has a currency, and each one starts from the level above it.

• Your workspace has a base currency. You pick it when you create your account, and it can't be changed later. Choosing your base and ledger currencies covers that decision.
• A ledger takes the workspace currency unless you name another one when you create it. A ledger's currency can't be changed afterwards. See create a ledger.
• An account takes the currency you give it. If you don't give one, it takes its ledger's currency, then the workspace's.
• A transaction takes its account's currency unless it carries its own. When an import holds rows in a currency other than the account's, the preview flags them before anything is saved.

When you give a ledger or an account a currency, it must be a real ISO currency code, such as USD, EUR or JPY.

Stored amounts are never converted

Each amount stays at face value in the currency it was recorded in. Imports and reports never rewrite it. See fix foreign-currency amounts that look 100x too large.

Totals inside one ledger

When a total covers one ledger and more than one currency, Pennyweight keeps the currencies apart.

• Cash flow. Income, expense and net come back per currency, for the whole period and for each period in the report that mixes currencies.
• Spending reports. You get the exact sum in each currency, plus a flag that the set mixes currencies. The response also carries a raw sum that adds the numbers as they are. That figure isn't an amount in any currency, so use the per-currency figures.
• Budgets. A budget's limit is in its ledger's currency. When the spending it tracks is in another currency, the budget shows that spending per currency and doesn't say whether you're over or under.

When a number is missing next to a per-currency breakdown, Pennyweight left it out on purpose. It means no honest single figure exists. It doesn't mean zero.

When everything in a total is in one currency, you get one number, labeled with that currency.

Totals across your ledgers

Some totals span every ledger: your net worth, your total cash across all accounts, and cash flow for all ledgers combined. A spending report across several ledgers you name works the same way. These come back in your display currency. By default that's your workspace currency. To pick another one, see choose the currency for totals across ledgers.

• You still get the per-currency figures. Next to them you get one figure converted into your display currency, with the rate date.
• Rates are daily reference rates from the European Central Bank. Your bank or card may have used a slightly different rate.
• If a currency has no rate from the past 7 days, the converted figure is left out and your AI is told which currency had no rate. Pennyweight never guesses a rate.
• Net worth, total cash and cash flow for all ledgers leave demo ledgers out. When a demo ledger is your active ledger, they cover only that demo. A spending report across ledgers you name covers just those ledgers, and a demo ledger can't be one of several.

How to see it

1. Ask your AI to break your spending down by currency. It returns one total per currency.
2. Ask for your total cash or your net worth. Your AI shows each currency and one combined figure in your display currency.
3. To get one spending number for a single ledger, narrow the question to one currency, one account or a ledger that holds a single currency. See track a trip's spending in its own ledger.

What you'll see

For the spending breakdown, your AI lists your spending in US dollars and your spending in euros as separate amounts. For total cash, it gives a dollar figure and a euro figure, then one combined figure in US dollars, converted at a stated rate date.

Good to know

• Spending reports cover your active ledger unless you name another ledger, several ledgers, or an account. Cash flow reports cover your active ledger unless you name another ledger or ask for all ledgers combined. Net worth and total cash cover every ledger in your workspace except demo ledgers.
• Amount filters ignore currency. "Over 100" matches ¥5,000 as well as $150, so add a currency when you search by amount.
• An account without a bank feed can hold transactions in a currency other than its own. Its balance then counts only the transactions in the account's own currency, and the others are listed separately for that account.
• For why some balances show as negative, see understanding balance signs.
• If a total still looks off, see totals look wrong.