Foreign Exchange A/R and A/P - Lingering Balances

Our accountants would like me to clear up lingering currency exchange values in my A/R and A/P accounts.  Note that I have quite a few currencies that we use.  For A/R I thought I could fix it by entering an entry through the Sales Journal.  This does get rid of the exchange balance, but then I end up with an invoice outstanding for this value.  I thought I could enter a Credit Note then make a payment where the invoice is cleared with the credit note.  This didn't work as it brought the A/R back to original value.

Would anyone have a work around to clear up these lingering exchange balances?

Parents
  • Not sure if you will find this helpful, but only rarely do we have currencies other than CAD.  I should also note that I have a USD bank account but we report in CAD. 

    This is how I handle it:

    For example, for a sale to the US, I enter the sales invoice amount in USD (CR to Sales), then add a second line on the invoice with the exchange amount on that day (also CR to Sales).  A third line on the invoice is a negative of the same amount on line two (DR Exchange Expense).  This will give you an invoice to provide to the company in USD (of $38,000.00 in my example below), and will provide an approximate sales value in CAD for your internal reporting.  The Receipts journal entry will look like this:
         DR - AR     $38,000.00
         DR - Exchange Expense     $13,000.00
         CR - Sales     $51,000.00 (this will be a combination of Lines one and two, the actual value of the sale in CAD)

    On the day of the receipt of funds, I calculate the actual exchange on that date and make the correction to the sales invoice by adjusting the original sales entry to read:
         DR - AR     $38,000.00
         DR - Exchange Expense     $12,851.20
         CR - Sales     $50,851.20

    Then I can post the actual USD payment received, which will look like this:
         DR - USD Bank     $38,000.00
         CR - AR     $38,000.00

Reply
  • Not sure if you will find this helpful, but only rarely do we have currencies other than CAD.  I should also note that I have a USD bank account but we report in CAD. 

    This is how I handle it:

    For example, for a sale to the US, I enter the sales invoice amount in USD (CR to Sales), then add a second line on the invoice with the exchange amount on that day (also CR to Sales).  A third line on the invoice is a negative of the same amount on line two (DR Exchange Expense).  This will give you an invoice to provide to the company in USD (of $38,000.00 in my example below), and will provide an approximate sales value in CAD for your internal reporting.  The Receipts journal entry will look like this:
         DR - AR     $38,000.00
         DR - Exchange Expense     $13,000.00
         CR - Sales     $51,000.00 (this will be a combination of Lines one and two, the actual value of the sale in CAD)

    On the day of the receipt of funds, I calculate the actual exchange on that date and make the correction to the sales invoice by adjusting the original sales entry to read:
         DR - AR     $38,000.00
         DR - Exchange Expense     $12,851.20
         CR - Sales     $50,851.20

    Then I can post the actual USD payment received, which will look like this:
         DR - USD Bank     $38,000.00
         CR - AR     $38,000.00

Children