
New integration to manage foreign currency accounts
I've made a YNAB integration that automates the approach I've been using for managing multiple foreign currency accounts in a single budget. You can try it at fca4ynab.borsboom.io.
Some notable features of this integration that set it apart from other solutions (such using separate budgets for different currencies, or YNAB Multi-Currency):
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All your accounts, both local and foreign currency, are in a single budget so you can see the state of all your finances at a glance.
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Auto-import, manual import, and reconciliation for foreign currency accounts works normally, in the original foreign currency.
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Reports and net worth will always be shown in your local currency, with all foreign amounts converted at an exchange rate accurate to within 24 hours.
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Budget categories are in your local currency, and it's no problem to mix local and foreign currency transactions in the same budget category.
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Split transactions are converted correctly.
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Foreign currency balances are automatically adjusted as the currency fluctuates, at an exchange rate accurate to within 24 hours.
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Your original transactions left are untouched.
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Uses historical exchange rates for transactions in the past.
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Processes transactions continuously; you should see converted transactions within five minutes.
This is based on an approach that I've been using manually for several years and found to work very well for our family budget which crosses three different currencies and involves a lot of foreign transactions and transfers (after trying a few other ways first).
The approach boils down to:
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Transactions in foreign currency accounts are kept in their original foreign currencies, so imports and reconciliation work as they should.
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For each foreign currency in the budget, there is a "virtual" difference account that holds the difference between your total holdings in the foreign currency and your those holdings converted to your local currency.
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For each transaction in a foreign currency account, a corresponding transaction is created in the difference account with the difference between the foreign amount and the amount converted to your local currency (at the exchange rate of the day before the transaction's date).
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Adjustment transactions are created daily in the difference account to account for fluctuating exchange rates, with a special budget category used as a "buffer" for these fluctuations.
For example, if
- your local currency is U.S. Dollars
- you hold €100.00, and
- €1.00 = $1.10, then
the Euro difference account would hold $10.00, since
- €100.00 * $1.10/€1.00 = $110
- the difference ($110 - $100) is $10.
If you create a €10.00 transaction, a corresponding transaction for $1.00, with the same payee and category, will be created in the Euro difference account in order to keep its balance correct.
If this sounds helpful to you, please give it a try at fca4ynab.borsboom.io!
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Hi Emanuel, I got it working from the very first day and everything is working neatly.
Can we have a way to tell the app that we want update the rates in an specific recurrence? Let's say monthly or weekly? Or to have one transaction and the amount auto updates? I don't really like to have all those transactions due to rate fluctuation.
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Hi! Trying this out today. I am an American living in Canada, so have accounts, credit cards, and transactions in both CAD and USD.
One thing I am confused on is how I budget for amounts in the different currencies.
For example my "local currency" is CAD, but I want to budget say 500 USD to my US Credit Card. How can I budget that in the right currency, or do I have to manually look up the conversion rate and do the calculation myself when I make the budget?
Does that question make sense?
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Hi Emanuel Borsboom . First of all, thanks a lot for your app. It seems to be just what I am looking for. Just one question: is it possible to manually choose the exchange rate? I'm currently working in Argentina and the official rate here is not what's used in real life. It'd be great if I can set it up myself (even if it's annoying...). Thanks!
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I've been using this for about a month or so now and I feel like I'm not tracking things properly and I can't trust my numbers very well. The fact that the budgets have no concept of currencies is just making it super confusing.
For example, I just transferred money from my "local" currency bank account CAD, to a USD bank account. I then transferred it from there to my US Brokerage which I track with a Tracking account in YNAB also set to USD. In this case I transferred $1,000 USD. No matter how I record this in my budget though it feels wrong. YNAB sees it as $1,000 to the Investments category. Which is true, sort of. But it was actually like $1340 CAD when it started. But if I budget $1340 in the Investments category then YNAB will show I have some left.
Either way its super confusing and I don't know if I'm just "doing it wrong" or its a limitation of this system.
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I just set this up, changed all my DKK accounts to their correct amounts and let your application do its thing. So far, it's looking very helpful.
However, when I look at my budget overview, the "Amount to be budgeted" is WAY to high. I don't know if the totals in all my accounts are just added up with no regard for their currency or what's going on, but is there any way to fix it? I would have expected it to be in my home currency (USD). -
Hi Emanuel, thanks for this! In Peru, a lot of credit cards are dual-currency (PEN and USD). How would you suggest handling them? Should I divide the credit card account into two: one in local currency and the other one in dollars (and a difference credit account for the dollar portion)? Any suggestions?
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For BTC and ETH you can use also https://crypto-syncer.web.app/ to sync your balances to YNAB. It uses exchange rates so that your BTC value will be translated to the currency of your budget