>Hello All,
>
>Anyone out there modified their Ebase to deal with dual currency?
>
>I've working with a group now that works across-the-border with
>Canada and accepts both donations and program fees in USD and CAD.
>No problem to mark the individual payments with the appropriate
>currency. The trick is how to aggregate and do other calculations
>when you have two different units. So I've put in a changable
>exchange rate, and am planning on having Ebase convert all amounts
>to USD before aggregating.
>
>I know how to do this, but wondering if anyone has traveled down
>this path before. There seems to be a lot to change to make the
>aggregation happen (find fields, reports, etc. etc. etc.) and would
>be nice to not have to hunt them all down. Looking for words of
>wisdom from veterans.
Never dealt with the two currencies before, but I had a challenge a
while back that looks similar.
I needed to add a second address with a check box to select which one
gets used in labels and the like. There are lots of places the
address gets used, and I didn't want to track them all down. I chose
to let the existing address fields stand as is. I added sets of data
entry fields for the two addresses, and a field to mark the address
to use. The existing address fields became calculation fields, with
the result based on the selection flag.
Similarly, you could add a new Amount Entry field in the payments
file, and as you suggest, a flag to indicate which currency and an
exchange rate. The existing field Amount would get set based on a
calculation with the amount entered, flag and exchange rate. The
existing Amount field would still get used in all the summaries, in
consistent units.
You've probably already thought this through, but you will want to
preserve the historical record of calculated amounts (since they are
already in the bank). You'll need to set up the calculation so when
you change the exchange rate, calculated amounts already entered
don't change. I'm not sure at first glance how to make that happen.
FileMaker isn't set up to trap a data entry event, so you can't
easily trigger a script with a Set Field step to post the calculated
amount. I think there is a plug-in that will do this, though.
>Also: anyone run Analyzer or ClickStats on Ebase 102 or 103 lately
>and would be willing to send me a copy of the resulting db?
>(contact me off-list if so)
>
>TIA much,
>Matthew
>
>
>Matthew Scholtz
>Database and Non-Profit Technology Consultant
>Bellingham, WA
>
>Also associated with NPower, Seattle
>www.npower.org
>
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