Hi. I invoice my clients in a couple of different international currencies (US dollars and Mexican pesos). Can I enter different currencies for different projects in Billings?

I asked the same questions a while back. It seems as if Billings does not support multiple currencies. Their marketing is a bit confusing on this side. While you can select your home currency from a range of countries, your invoices have to stick with this currency throughout. I’m invoicing in GBP, EUR, USD... and it is, honestly, a nightmare. The main reason why I haven’t yet registered any of the prominent billing apps: iRatchet, iBiz, and Billings.

It would be soooo easy to implement this feature. Just have two separate fields for currency sign and exchange rate at the time of invoicing. That’s it. I could override the home currency setting easily on a per invoice basis and still have my totals in the preferred home currency.

Thanks for your response, as well as your empathy. Let's hope some Marketcircle folks see the benefits in adding such a feature for the increasingly global marketplace...

Multiple currencies is definitely something we'll be looking at supporting in a future version. It has some serious ramifications for our reports, etc. but we'll look into all that in detail when appropriate.

In the meantime, you can simulate--in fact, "bill"--in multiple currencies by making one copy of your invoice template style for -each- currency. We specify that all currency amounts be formatted as currency, meaning that we get a number like 54.50, and turn it into the Mac OS X local currency, such as $ 54.50 or € 54.50.

What you can do is tell those numbers to format as a decimal number (0.00) only, and if there is a number there (we call that "if valid text"), stick a certain curency symbol in front of it. Anywhere that a currency appears, like Total or Subtotal, you can grab that blue "token" in our design window, and tell it to format this way. What you end up with is a custom invoice specific to a certain currency. And you can make as many of these as you want, although if you make a change to one--in terms of layout for instance--you'd have to change all of them for consistency.

Also, remember that all the amounts shown within Billings itself will still use your home currency: This is just for appearance's sake, to bill in certain currencies. Reports, like Taxes Collected, if appropriate, will always show amounts formatted in your local currency.

HTH,

Adam,

Thanks for the reply. Your solution would of course throw my reports totally out of orbit.

See, what I’m thinking of is something truly simple: select a home currency and have all reports in said home currency. Have two additional fields in the slip section: one for currency symbol, one for exchange rate at the time of invoicing. If, and ONLY IF, these two fields show a value simply override the totals field by multiplying the value entered for the service with the currency exchange rate... and replace the currency symbol on the invoice. It really is that simple. Nobody is expecting up to date exchange rate calculations or anything. A small override would do the job perfectly. And still allow for reports to be calculated correctly in the home currency.

Adam,

May I ask when you’re planning to support multi currencies? I’m contemplating purchasing Billings 2 and if this feature is scheduled for Billings 3 or 4 or whatever I’m not dashing out my hard dough just yet but continue doing my invoicing through Pages.

Unfortunately, I would not expect this feature in the near term.

Thanks for the honest reply... back to Pages then...

Indeed, thanks for the honest responses. And thanks for your suggestion, Adam. I just experimented with your solution and created a number of invoices -- but then decided to delete all such projects and invoices I'd created. At first I thought it would be a viable way to track outstanding invoices as well as to bill the clients but, as gryphonent pointed out, the potential problems that approach poses for my record keeping are just too significant.

Indeed... the consequences are too big and it would be like fitting a square peg into a hole. What I seriously do not understand is why none of the leading billing applications addresses that issue. Neither Billings, nor iRatchet or iBiz or Billable do. This is a major oversight and an opportunity missed to gain a first mover advantage in this competitive market.

I agree. This should be a standard feature. Apparantly, Studiometry does this but its price tag is just insane, not to mention their pricing strategy, they seem to charge 20% more ever quarter that passes.
I love Billing's invoices, they are truly stunning, it's such a shame it fails on such a simple feature. Ah well, back to writing invoices in my word processing application...

Studiometry does it with ease and it would have been my choice if it wasn't for the complex usage (and price tag). From all the different programs I have tested, I very much like Billings ease of use and integration with the Mac. I do multiple currencies all the time, mainly Pounds and Euros, occasionally the odd Dollar bill. I don't need an instant conversion feature, I keep the bills in their currency and accumulate them. Could we just have a 'currency' feature and calculate them according to their currency? Could be assigned to each customer or project, together with the appropriate VAT/Tax.

hmmm... what a disappointment to not have multiple currency support in a single invoice. So, what do I do if I am based in the US and travel to Europe for work? Some of the expenses are here in the US, and others in Europe. There too, the currency rate is fluctuating, so I really need multiple currency support with granularly adjustable exchange rates. Sad to see that Billings is out. Using Pages for invoicing is the only viable option for now.

Yes, I agree with everyone here... multi-currency is a definite MUST! The newly released GrandTotal does this perfectly! If Market Circle would please just mimic this functionality that would be insane!! Please Please Please.... bump this up to the top of your priority list!

And I hope that multi-currency will be included in version 3. I'm not paying for yet another upgrade. Version 3, that's it. If Marketcircle cannot listen to its customers then I will move my business elsewhere.