ECB Exchange Rate Converter

Does your organization have several branches in different countries, and do you regularly have to settle intercompany transactions in foreign currencies? Exchange rates are constantly changing, which directly affects your intercompany transactions. Of course, you want to stay in sync with the ECB. With the Business Central ECB Exchange Rate Converter application from Bluace, you ensure that you have insight into the latest exchange rate of any foreign exchange rate to the Euro and vice versa.

What is the ECB Exchange Rate Converter?

The ECB Exchange Rate Converter is an application from Bluace for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Are you already familiar with Microsoft Business Central? You probably know that the software imports the exchange rate from the Euro (your base currency) to any other foreign currency. But does your organization have worldwide branches with a base currency other than the Euro? And do you want to import the exchange rate from, for example, the Dollar to the Euro? Then, the standard functionality of Microsoft Business Central does not support this. With the ECB Exchange Currency Converter, you add this functionality to your Business Central environment and ensure you can set any worldwide currency as your default currency. In addition, the application imports the exchange rate (published by the ECB) from your chosen base currency to the Euro daily. This extra functionality for Business Central is indispensable if you regularly perform intercompany transactions between the various international branches.

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Features

Convert any global currency to Euro (and vice versa);
Set any global currency as the default currency in the General Ledger Setup;
Schedule the update in the Job Queue Entries;
Support any foreign exchange rate published by the ECB.

Benefits

Easy intercompany settlements in any currency;
Work with the most up-to-date exchange rates from the ECB;
No longer manual data entries;
Increase data efficiency and accuracy;
Use only one reliable source for all exchange rates.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

As explained earlier, the Business Central ECB Exchange Rate Converter adds to your environment. Business Central is an ERP solution that is easy to implement and supports you in automating and connecting your business processes. Business Central is a SaaS solution, which means you decide what you need. Want to know more about Business Central? We are happy to explain it to you.

ECB Exchange Rate Converter in the Microsoft Marketplace

The ECB Exchange Rate Converter application for your Business Central environment is available on Microsoft Marketplace. You can add this application to your software without the help of your implementation partner. However, be aware that your software changes and may react unexpectedly. Bluace is here to guide you through the purchase of add-ons and ensures a hassle-free expansion.

Frequently asked questions about the ECB Exchange Rate Converter

Click a question to see the answer. These are the questions finance teams and auditors ask us most often about logging, error handling, calculation and access control.

Is there a retained log of every scheduled import run?

Yes. The import runs as a standard Business Central Job Queue Entry. Every run is recorded in the standard Job Queue Log Entries, which retain the start and end date-time, the user account the job ran under, and the status (Success or Error) with the error message. The app does not write a separate import log listing the individual rates. The rates imported per run are visible in the standard Currency Exchange Rates table, where the Starting Date is the ECB reference date (taken from the ECB XML, not the run date). The source is always the ECB daily reference feed (eurofxref-daily.xml); it is fixed and cannot be changed. Combined with the Change Log on table 330, this gives you the run date and time, the effective rate date, the values and the outcome of every run.

What happens when the ECB feed fails or a rate is missing?

A failed download, an unparseable response or a missing ECB rate for your local currency raises an error, so the Job Queue Entry goes to status Error with the message in the Job Queue Log. You can monitor this with the standard Business Central job queue notifications or the Job Queue Entries list. Currencies that exist in your Currency table but are not published by the ECB are simply not updated; the app does not raise an exception or write a log entry for those.

Does the app overwrite existing exchange rates?

Yes. The key is Currency Code plus Starting Date. If a record for that date already exists, the app updates it in place. The ECB publishes one reference rate per date, so a second run on the same day rewrites the same values. The prior value is not retained by the app itself. If you enable the Business Central Change Log on table 330 “Currency Exchange Rate” (Modification, All Fields), every insert and update, including those made by the job queue, is logged with the old value, new value, user and timestamp. We recommend enabling this at go-live.

How are rates calculated and rounded for a non-EUR local currency?

The ECB publishes all rates against EUR. The app derives the rate against your local currency (LCY) as follows: the LCY→EUR factor is 1 divided by the ECB rate of your LCY, and the rate for currency X is the ECB rate of X multiplied by that factor. EUR itself is written as 1 divided by the ECB rate of your LCY. Values are written to “Exchange Rate Amount” with “Relational Exch. Rate Amount” = 1, and the same values go into the Adjustment fields. The app applies no rounding of its own; values are stored at Business Central’s full decimal precision. Conversions between two foreign currencies at transaction level follow standard Business Central logic via the local currency.

How does the app handle weekends, TARGET holidays and currencies the ECB does not publish?

The ECB feed always returns the last published business day with its reference date. On weekends and TARGET closing days the app therefore rewrites that last business day (same date, same values) and creates no new record; Business Central then applies the latest rate on or before the document date, which is standard behaviour. We recommend scheduling the job after 16:15 CET, when the ECB publishes. Currencies not published by the ECB (around 30 currencies are published) are not touched by the app and remain manually maintained; currencies in the feed that do not exist in your Currency table are ignored. Make sure the “Euro Currency Code” in the app setup matches the currency code you use for EUR in Business Central, otherwise the EUR rate is not written.

Which permissions does the app use and how do I restrict changes to the setup?

The app ships one permission set, “ECB Exch. Rate Converter”, covering the setup table, the setup page and the import and job queue codeunits. Configuration is a single field (Euro Currency Code) on the ECB Exch. Rates Setup page; the ECB URL cannot be changed. To restrict changes we recommend: assign the app permission set only to finance administrators; give regular users read-only access to table 330 (Currency Exchange Rate) so manual rate edits are limited to a controlled group; enable the Change Log on tables 330, 472 (Job Queue Entry) and the ECB setup table; and run the job queue under a dedicated service account so the log clearly distinguishes automated imports from manual entries.

Do I need the app for entities whose local currency is EUR?

No. The ECB Exchange Rate Converter is intended for companies whose local currency is not EUR, for example USD. For entities with EUR as local currency you use the standard Business Central Currency Exchange Rate Service, which can also be pointed at the ECB feed. Both approaches use the same ECB daily reference rates, so rates stay consistent across your EUR and non-EUR entities for intercompany purposes. Schedule both at the same time, after 16:15 CET, so all entities carry the same reference date.

More questions? Visit our full FAQ page with answers about cloud, security, integrations, implementation and costs.

Do you need help importing exchange rates into your Business Central software?

Mark Landman

+31858200802

info@bluace.nl

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