Saturday, October 31, 2015

Different currencies are easy in Trip Splitter!


Trip Splitter handles different currencies very efficiently. You just define a new currency for the first expense item of the new country, as you enter that country. And on that item's currency definition, you also specify "This and Future" so that new expenses will be defaulted in that currency. When you go to the next country, just do the same thing with the first expense in that country.

Here are the steps:
- Create a new expense item
- Enter the amount
- Touch the currency button just to the left of the amount
- When the currency view comes up touch in the upper left-hand corner to change the item currency
- With the spinner, select the new currency of this item
- Touch the conversion factor amount in the formula (the center number) and enter the new conversion factor.
- If you're going to have multiple expenses of the same new currency touch the "This and Future" button
- touch done


Be sure to not touch the trip currency button in the upper right hand corner. There should be no reason to change the trip currency. It is defaulted to the currency of your home country - where you bought your phone. But if you do change it, don't worry, no conversion factors are changed automatically. You can change it back at any time. The Trip Currency is used in communications about the trip. It is used to label the amounts that are owed for evening up. It is used in emails that summarize expenses.


A few notes:
If you need to enter a different currency in the middle of a series of expenses in the new country, you'll have to enter it as a This Item Only. And then when you go to enter another currency of the current country, you'll have to define that new currency factor again and set the This and Future up again. 

In Trip Splitter, each expense item with a currency conversion will have its own conversion factor. If you use the "This and Future" feature, all the items will have the same conversion factor, but they are still saved separately.  So it is important to get the conversion factor correct, especially if you are going to be charging expenses where your credit card company may use a conversion factor different than what you see at banks in the new countries.  If your credit card company uses a very different factor you may feel that you should change the factors in your trip record and that would mean editing all the items with that currency.

Here is a help video about creating expense items in Trip Splitter and it has a video on setting up currency conversions.
http://www.dcsoftwarearts.com/tripsplitter/detailed-video-v200