Archive - Moneydance 2017 - Currency and VAT/GST

This is an archived document. Please refer to the more recent knowledge base articles on this page

Cross-Currency Transactions -

Moneydance was designed to provide a way to deal with multiple currencies in an easy and flexible manner. By default a new Moneydance data file contains several dozen currencies making it easy for you to get started with Moneydance, or simply to track spending on a trip out of your home country.

In the instance where a transaction occurs between an account in one currency and an account or category in a different currency, Moneydance will default to the current exchange rate.

If you would like to use a different exchange rate, enter the amount in account's base currency in the “Payment” or “Deposit” field, and the other currency amount in the “Foreign Amount” field which is directly below the Deposit field.

Adding, Editing, or Deleting Currencies -

You can even make up your own currencies, as long as the "Currency ID" (the standard, three letter identifier for currencies such as USD, GBP or EUR) is unique. You might want to make up your own currency if, for example, you would like to track something other than money (cryptocurrencies, gold bars, or jellybeans) using an account in Moneydance.

To automatically update your currency history, install the Quotes and Exchange Rates extension.

To view and edit the list of currencies in your data file in the menu bar go to Tools → Currencies.

To add a new currency, click the + button.

To delete a currency highlight the currency and click the - button. You cannot delete a currency which is involved in any transactions in your data file.

To change the Base Currency of your account set, highlight the desired currency and click the “Set Base Currency” button. While this will change the base currency of your file, and the default currency of new accounts or categories your create, it will not affect the currencies of existing accounts and/or categories.

Double click a the currency’s name to view the current and historical exchange rates.

From here you can add or remove historical exchange rates, import a set of historical exchange rates, or clear all exchange rates. Click the Edit button to change the Currency ID, Currency Name, Value Prefix (such as £, €, AU$, etc) of the currency.

Using the Search Box as a Currency Calculator -

The Search box also functions as a currency calculator. Simply enter a number followed by a currency ID (such as GBP, EUR, USD, or other currency ID) and the calculator will translate it into all other currencies in your data file.

To edit the currencies currently in your file go to Tools→Currencies. Currency exchange rates are only available if you have the Quotes and Exchange Rates extension installed, or have manually entered/imported exchange rates.

Setting up VAT/GST -

First, enable VAT/GST support in Moneydance’s preferences and restart Moneydance.

Now you'll need set the VAT/GST rate for each category. You can do this when creating categories, or view and edit all VAT/GST rates through the Tools→VAT/GST Settings menu. This will display a table where you can enter the tax rates for each category, as well as the category to which the taxes will be assigned.

Once a category has been assigned a tax rate and tax category, any new transactions that are assigned that category will be split into two parts; the tax part, and the normal income/expense part. The tax part of the transaction will be assigned to the tax category. This splitting of transactions is subject to the "Apply VAT/GST" check box in the transaction editor remaining checked.

If you have a large number of transactions that have not been split you can use the Tools→VAT/GST Transactions menu to display all of the transactions to which VAT/GST may apply (according to your settings) so that you can quickly set the rate or tax amount for each one. This window will only display VAT/GST transactions for one account at a time, so you will need to repeat the process for each bank account, credit card, etc which has VAT spending.