TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Kahua Standard
• Overview
• Configuring Currency – Domain level
• Adding Currencies and Rates
• Creating Rate Types
• What Exchange Rates to Use
• Updating Exchange Rates and Using Dated Rates
• The Project Currency

Kahua Standard

This article explains multi-currency configuration for admins with the Kahua Standard package installed on their domain. For "Kahua for X" (Owner, GC, K-12) package multi-currency, also known as the baseline currency method, please refer to this article.

Overview

Kahua supports many multi-currency scenarios, ranging from just-a-few currencies on a project to supporting all the world’s currencies.

Kahua’s standard multicurrency functionality allows admins to update exchange rates as required. 

Kahua thinks and works in terms of the project currency (technically called the partition currency). The exchange rates convert the project currency values to the document (native) currency as required. Kahua assigns the currency exchange rate when a document is created, maintaining that rate for the document’s life.

Currencies, and their default exchange rate to the domain currency, are set up at the top level of Kahua – the domain. Child programs and projects, technically known as Kahua Partitions, may inherit these currencies and exchange rates or define their own.

Currency Types allow for different exchange rates for the same currency to be used for reporting (see Reporting Rate) or different document types. For example, the administrator can configure budget documents to use one currency type and contracts / Purchase Orders to use another. 

For single-currency documents, such as a contract document, all new cost data on that document, such as new items, will use the same exchange rate. 

For multi-currency documents, such as a budget document, each line item may be in a different currency. In this case, Kahua gets the latest exchange rate from configuration when a new item is created. 

Configuring Currency – Domain level

Currency configuration at the domain sets up the available currencies and the default rates for use on all projects within that domain.  

The domain currency is set during the creation of a corporate domain. This information is gathered as part of the initial Kahua setup for a corporation. This cannot be changed after the initial setup.

Rates at the domain level 

• As these are the top level, they can’t be inherited from above
• Also, for a currency to be available on any project within the domain, the currency must be configured at the domain/ rates. 
• The exchange rates configured here serve as the default for new projects unless the projects are copied from other projects.
• See project Rates for details on configuration details.

Rate Types

• Many implementations use just one rate type. 
• Additional rate types are an advanced feature for using different rates on different documents at the same time.

Adding Currencies and Rates

To make a currency available to a project or program, add it at the top level (domain) partition first.

To add a currency, go to the “Currency” tab of the configuration application.

 

 On the "Rates" subtab, click "Add" in the Exchange Rates Table.

 

In the resulting modal, select which currency to add and click "Ok."

The new currency is then added to the exchange rates table and is usable across all projects within the domain.

 

Creating Rate Types

Rate types can only be created at the domain level partition. To create a new rate type while in the domain level partition, go to the “Rate Types” subtab and click “Add”.

 

 Name the new rate type and click "Save". After saving, relaunch open applications (including the configuration app) for the new configuration to take effect.

After restarting the configuration app, the new rate type can be included on any project by checking "Include" in the "Rate Types" table on the "Rates" subtab of currency configuration. Admins can create unlimited rate types.

 

What Exchange Rates to Use

The exchange rates are always entered in terms of the domain currency, even if the project (partition) currency is different from the domain currency. The question to answer is: how much of the new currency will there be after converting one unit of the domain currency?  
 

In the above example, the domain currency is USD – as this is the domain currency, it’s exchange rate is un-editable (the domain currency rate will always be 1.0). To enter the AUD rate, think how many AUD does $1.00 USD buy?  In late 2022, a reasonable rate would be somewhere between $1.50 and $1.60 AUD for $1.00 USD.
 

Updating Exchange Rates and Using Dated Rates

Exchange rates can be updated for each rate type of each currency at any partition on the Rates subtab.

 

Admins can configure their project to use dated rates by selecting "Dated Rates" in the "Exchange Rate Structure" lookup. 

This option allows admins to insert multiple sets of exchange rates for the same currency and provide an "effective date" for when each set of rates should become active.


 

By default, the "Auto-Update Active Rate" checkbox is selected. While this setting is active, the dated exchange rates used will auto-update based on the effective dates of each rate set.

 

To disable this feature, toggle the checkbox to off. While disabled, admins must manually select a dated rate set to use as the active rate.

 

The Project Currency

Each project can have its own currency, selected from the available currencies (see Adding Currencies) for that project.  This is the currency the project “thinks” in and the unit the system persists in the database.