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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics SL (Archived) / Dynamics SL Multi-Curr...
Microsoft Dynamics SL (Archived)

Dynamics SL Multi-Currency / Multi-Company Question

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Posted on by JHOFF 95

Hello.  New here and just frustrated with getting an answer from some consultants we are using.

We have a few wholly-owned subsidiaries in foreign countries.  Needless to say, we have several currencies that are being used.  Our consultants sold us on using Multi-Company to accomplish our consolidated reporting.  But this requires us to translate and enter our foreign currency transactions manually (direct import isn't an option).  We then also have to manually account for currency fluctuations when consolidating.  

We were also told that using Multi-Currency and Multi-Company at the same time could cause issues.  But we are wondering if what we're being told is correct.  Or should we have just gone with multi-currency from the get-go?  Multi Co doesn't seem to bring much to the table for us aside from doing due to/from entries automatically.

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  • Mark E Profile Picture
    Mark E 6,451 on at

    I've implemented several multi-company/multi-currency sites in the past, and at no time have I ever run into any issues in that scenario.  I am assuming you have all the companies in a single application db, and they all have the same base currency, but will transact in multiple currencies.

    If each company has a different base currency, then multiple application db's are required.

    The multi-company benefits differ greatly depending on the application db situation (single vs. multiple).

    Would love to hear more about some of the challenges you are being presented with...

  • John_Joyce Profile Picture
    John_Joyce 1,042 on at

    Out of the box, Multi-Company works very well when all of the companies share the same base currency, same fiscal calendar and can share the same Chart of Accts, Subaccounts, Customers & Vendors.

    If the foreign subsidiaries want to transact in their home currency (and not in USD), then typically those subs would be created in their own separate Application database (one for each currency). In this situation, the Financial Statement Translation module would be used to translate the T/B's of the foreign subs from their home currency to USD, and then that USD T/B would be used for consolidated USD reporting in Management Reporter or FRx.

    However, it is very possible to use a single application database for all companies, domestic & foreign, and still allow the foreign subs to transact in their home currency. That's where the old BlueWorld Financials add-on can help. Here's a link to the product site:

    www.renown.com.au/.../BlueWorld.aspx

    I have one old client using BlueWorld, still on SL 7.0.  This client has subsidiaries in the UK, India, Shanghai & Singapore. All entities are set-up in a single application database. Once it is set-up properly, it works very well.

    Hope this helps,

    John

  • John_Joyce Profile Picture
    John_Joyce 1,042 on at

    Are there significant inter-company transactions between the USD Parent company and the foreign subsidiaries? If so, then keeping the companies in a single multi-company database is probably the best course, and from here you can look into the BlueWorld product to help the foreign subs transact in their home currency.  

    But if the inter-company activity is minimal, then you were probably ill-advised & the foreign subs should've been set-up in their own currency-specific database(s).

  • JHOFF Profile Picture
    JHOFF 95 on at

    Thank you for the responses.  The main activity for the subs is inter-company transactions.  We have entities in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Canada and another domestic (US) company.  The current multi-company set up works OK (single DB).  But as it is only in USD we have to take the financials from the foreign subs and do the currency translation by hand.  We hire local firms to do local compliance for HK/Shenzhen, keep the Canadian transactions in Quickbooks (sigh...) and then have to shoehorn all this into Dynamics.  We were trying to find a solution to avoid this.  The consultant we have been using for Dynamics support for years has I think limited experience in this area and wanted to do more research into Multi Company, Multi Currency to see if they'd work together as none of their clients currently use both.  

    So it sounds like going to Multi-Currency and Multi-Company would create some nuances, like having to have multiple databases.  I'm assuming another change would require logging out entirely of Dynamics and logging into a different database for the foreign subs.  There could also be other ways.  

    Is BlueWorld usable on SL 2011?  I guess our concerns there would be cost and the life cycle of the product.  We probably wouldn't want to start using a product that is going to "die" soon.  I only bring this up because the way this was mentioned made it sound like an old workaround, but perhaps I am mistaken.

  • John_Joyce Profile Picture
    John_Joyce 1,042 on at

    There'd be no need to log-off & log back into to SL to change companies, even if those companies are in separate application DB's.  You would merely change companies as you normally do already.

    You or your consultant will have to reach out to Renown and confirm their product works with SL2011.

    Some of my clients who have separate DB's will get monthly T/B activity from their foreign subs and then use Transaction Import to load it into SL. From there they use FST to translate those foreign T/B's in SL to USD for use in reporting. This would only be viable if you didn't need all of the foreign transaction data in SL and didn't need to rely on the Multi-Co module to auto-create the inter-company transactions.  You could easily get your Canada sub processing in SL, and then rely on importing the T/B activity for the Chinese subs. Several different ways to set this up, depending on where the pain-points are and how to relieve them efficiently.

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