Overview

We know that not every business is going to operate using the same Currency, or even in one single currency - in this article, we'll talk about how to set and convert Currencies within Parallax, in order to set the appropriate Cost and Bill Rates for People across multiple Locations!

What does Currency affect?

Currently, Currency affects three major elements of how you use Parallax:

• The Currency (and Exchange Rate) used to set an Person's Cost (learn more about setting Cost here and here)
• The Currency (and Exchange Rate) that is used for Billing Rates on People (find out more about how Billing Rates are set here)
• The Currency used to view your Insights Reports (check out our various Insights reports here)

Setting Exchange Rates

The first step towards working with multiple Currencies in Parallax is to set up a table for Exchange Rates.  You'll do this under Settings > Customization.  The Exchange Rates Table allows you to establish the types of Currency your organization will be working with, in order to convert your Default Currency into them.

To do this is simple, just:

1. Click Add Currency, then select the supported Currency you'd like to be able to convert to.
2. Click "Use Rate" to use today's Exchange Rate or manually enter the desired Exchange Rate
3. Click "Save"

Once you've added a Currency to the Exchange Rate Table, you'll need to periodically update the Exchange Rate, which you can do by:

1. Hovering over the desired currency and selecting the pencil icon.
2. Selecting Use Rate or manually entering a Rate in the module that appears.
3. Clicking "Save".
4. Selecting the desired date you'd like the Exchange Rate to take effect.
5. Clicking to "Confirm."

Once you've made changes to the Exchange Rate for a Currency, you can view (or remove) those changes within the View Log option, much like Effective Dates on Cost Rates. Much like a Person's Cost Effective Dates, the Dates you'll see in the Exchange Rate Log are the dates you've selected for the Exchange Rate to be effective, not the date you added or changed the Exchange rate.

Setting up Locations

In order to apply the ability to use different currencies to different Locations, you'll need to first create some locations - which you'll associate with specific Currencies.

You'll do this on the Locations page, and once Locations are created created, you'll individually add Locations to People so that their Costs are automatically converted to the appropriate currency!

Right now the Locations Page will show you the Name, Abbreviation, Currency and Number of People that are assigned to it - but as we identify and implement new ways to customize worker segments by Location, expect this to be the place they'll be managed.   Here you can add Locations, set the associated Currency and set a default Location for new Projects.  You can check out a full breakdown of the Settings > Locations page and how it all works here.

How to use Currencies

Changing Currency of People's Costs by Location

Settings > Roles - The first thing to know is that Locations (and therefore Cost) will still be managed at the Person-by-Person level.  This means that the Cost you set for a Role in Settings > Roles will be the Cost in your default Currency.  People assigned to that Role will automatically have their Cost converted based on the Currency associated with their Location. 

However, when setting your Cost Rate for a Role, you will see a dropdown for converting to available currencies.  be able to View what this will translate to in different currencies. This will allow you to see how the Cost you're entering will currently convert to other available Currencies on People in other Locations.

Settings > People - Once you've set up Locations on your Locations page, you'll add a Location to each Person under Settings > People.  Their Cost Rate will then be converted based on the Default Role Rate and any applicable Currency associated with the Location. 

Here's an example of what this looks like:

Your company's Default Currency is USD and you are based in Minnesota, United States.  The Role you want to fill Role 1 has a Default Cost of $100 but you want to hire Person 1 who is located in Montreal, CA using the Canadian Dollar (CAD).  You will want to:

1. Add a Currency for the Canadian Dollars in Customization > Settings with the current exchange (currently 1.3499)
2. Then Create the Location of Montreal, CA and assign it the Canadian Dollar.
3. Finally, when creating People Profile for Person 1, assign to them to Role 1 and Location of  Montreal, CA
4. Their Default Cost will then be ($100 USD x $1.3499 CAD per USD = $134.99 CAD)

Remember, you can always override an Person's Default Cost with a Custom Cost Rate!  When entering in Custom Cost, you'll want to enter it in the Currency associated with the Person's Location - in the example above, let's say the cost of Person 1 is $125 CAD - simply enter that amount, and the Exchange Rate table will automatically convert it to your Primary Currency like this:

As Person1 appears on Projects, which are in your Primary Currency, they'll automatically converted to the appropriate cost!

Managing People's Bill Rates by Currency

Billing Rates for People have always been managed by Rate Cards, with our new Multi-Currency functionality - this is not changing.

Where you've historically had one Default Rate Card for one Currency, you'll now have a separate Default Rate Card for each Currency you create, which you can see under Settings > Rate Cards.  Each time you create a Currency, Parallax will automatically create a duplicate of your Default Rate Card, and convert rates into that Currency.

While you'll now always have at least as many Default Rate Cards as you have Currencies, you can visit the Settings > Rate Cards page to create as many alternate Rate Cards as you like for each Currency you've added, in order to manually, set the alternate Rates the same way you do with your Default Currency.  Rate Cards continue to be applied through the Financial Settings page on a Project, but now they will apply the Currency as well as Rates:

Managing Currency Default Rate Card by Pipelines

Does this mean all Projects start out in your Default Currency, and then must be manually assigned the a Rate card for a different Currency?  What if you have a separate Pipeline for Deals associated with a specific region or location?  We've thought of that, too!

On your Settings > Integrations page, you can now set a Default Currency for each Pipeline - this will automatically set your Currency for the Project so that the correct Default Rate Card can be applied!

Currencies in Insights

The Insights Reports which are currently concerned with Revenue (Revenue Margin, Earned, Schedule and Forecast - as well as Project Health Overview and By Period) will default to your organization's Default Currency, but can be managed next to Views in the upper-right corner.  

You will be able to view each of these reports in any Currency you have added under Settings > Customization, and the currency will be a filter-setting included in any Saved Views you create.  This means you can create separate Saved Views for the same data set in each Currency, if you want!