Multicurrency: Journal entry error message in QuickBooks Online

When working with multiple currencies in QuickBooks Online, all customer or supplier transactions must be recorded in the currency assigned to that customer or supplier or you will encounter the error message: Something’s not quite right: You can only use home currency balance sheet accounts with home currency A/R and A/P accounts.

This means that when creating a journal entry that includes accounts receivable (A/R) or accounts payable (A/P), the currency of the transactions, the A/R and A/P accounts, and the customers/suppliers must all match.

QuickBooks Online blocks journal entries that mix currencies for customers or suppliers because these may lead to incorrect open balances or incorrect exchange gains or losses.

Here are some ways you can record these payments.

Option 1 (Recommended)

Usually, you can recreate the problem journal entry so that the transaction currency, A/R or A/P currencies, and customer or supplier currencies are all the same. This may require you to manually convert one currency to another using the exchange rate from the deleted journal entry.

Example: If you created a journal entry for a foreign-currency customer or supplier in your home currency, you could create a replacement journal entry in the foreign currency by manually dividing the home-currency amounts by the exchange rate from the deleted journal entry.

Option 2

1. Create a duplicate of the customer or supplier from your original journal entry and assign the second currency you want to use. You will need to use a slightly different Customer display name for the duplicate. For example, if your original customer was assigned CAD but wants to pay you in EUR, create a duplicate customer, assign it EUR, and put space-hyphen after the Customer display name.
2. Void any open transactions for the original customer or supplier that are in the first currency but should be in the second.
3. Recreate these transactions using the duplicate customer or supplier, so they will be in the correct currency. Refer to your printout of the deleted journal entry for the exchange rate, home currency, and foreign currency amounts to recreate these transactions. Example: If you invoiced your customer in CAD but your customer paid you in USD, you would:
   • Create a duplicate of the customer in USD
   • Receive the customer’s USD payment against the USD invoice.
   • Void the CAD invoice to the customer
   • Recreate the invoice using the USD copy of the customer, with prices in USD

Option 3

If you are comfortable with accounting, you can use a home-currency wash account and two journal entries to move a receivable or payable from one customer or supplier to another in a different currency.

1. Create an empty cash-on-hand bank account in your home currency. This wash account will only be used for currency transfers and should not carry a balance. For example, if your home currency is USD, create the wash account in USD.
2. Create a duplicate of the customer or supplier from your original journal entry and assign the second currency you want to use. You will need to use a slightly different Customer display name for the duplicate. For example, if your original customer was assigned CAD but wants to pay you in EUR, create a duplicate customer, assign it EUR, and put space-hyphen after the Customer display name.
3. Create a journal entry to move the receivable or payable from the original customer or supplier to the home-currency wash account:
   • Currency – same as the original customer or supplier on your deleted journal entry
   • Exchange rate – same as on your deleted journal entry
   • Credit A/R or A/P – the same amount as on your deleted journal entry in the currency of the original customer or supplier
   • Debit wash account – the same amount as on your deleted journal entry in the currency of the original customer or supplier
4. Create a second journal entry to move the receivable or payable from the wash account to the target customer or supplier, in their currency:
   • Currency – same as the target customer or supplier
   • Exchange rate – should be set so that the home currency value of this journal entry matches the home currency value of the journal entry you created in Step 2, so that there will be no remainder left in the wash account. Usually, this equals the home currency amount of the first journal entry divided by the target currency amount.
     Note: If your target currency is the same as your home currency, there will be no exchange rate (as it is 1:1).
   • Credit wash account – the target currency amount
   • Debit A/R or A/P – the target currency amount. Assign the target-currency duplicate customer or supplier to this line item.
5. Close the original open transaction with the original customer or supplier by applying the credit from the first journal entry to it.
6. The receivable or payable has now been transferred to the duplicate customer or supplier in the target currency