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Cross-Currency Budget
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Currencies and estimates

Why each currency has its own totals, how estimates work, and where the exchange rates come from.

Your money stays in its own currency

Every amount in the app has the currency of its account. Each total is for one currency. The app never converts money for you. Only a conversion that you record moves money from one currency to another.

This has three results:

  • Ready to budget is separate for each account, in the account's currency.
  • A category shows one Available amount for each currency that it holds.
  • An overspent category needs money in the same currency. Euros in Ready to budget cannot cover a deficit in forints. To use the euros, record a conversion first.

Estimates

An estimate shows the value of your money in one currency, your display currency. Estimates always start with ≈, for example ≈ HUF 3,810,187. They are for information only. They do not change any amount, any category or Ready to budget.

Estimates show in these places:

  • Budget: a ≈ column in the totals table.
  • Accounts: a ≈ column for each account, and Total cash, all accounts.
  • Budget: a small ≈ line under the Available amounts of a category that holds another currency.

A note below each table gives the date of the rates.

When you see a dash (—)

Sometimes the app shows — instead of an estimate. This happens in two cases:

  • A negative amount in one currency would be added to a positive amount in another currency. The total would hide a problem: the negative amount must be covered in its own currency.
  • There is no exchange rate for one of the currencies.

On a computer, point to the dash to see the reason.

Choose your display currency

  1. Go to Settings.
  2. Under Display currency, select a currency. The first choice uses the currency of your first account.
  3. Select Save currency.

To turn estimates off, select Off: native currencies only.

Exchange rates

Estimates use the reference rates of the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB publishes about 30 currencies on working days, after 16:00 CET. The app loads them each day.

To see the rates, go to Settings and select See rates. The page shows the latest rate of each currency, and the last 90 days for one currency. If the rates are old, select Load latest rates.

Estimates and conversions are different

A conversion records the rate that you actually got from your bank, with fees. An estimate uses the ECB reference rate. The two rates are almost never the same. Your balances always use the conversions, never the estimates.