Multi-Currency in Odoo 19 for Importers and Exporters

Short answer: in Odoo 19, activate each foreign currency in Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Currencies, keep its rates up to date (by hand, or with Automatic Currency Rates in Enterprise), and choose the currency on each bill, invoice, purchase order or pricelist. Odoo books every foreign document in rupees at the rate for its date. When the payment arrives at a different rate, it posts the realised gain or loss for you. Revaluing open balances at month end, the unrealised side, is Enterprise only.

If journals and ledger accounts are new to you, start with my explainer on chart of accounts and journals in Odoo.

Applies to

• Odoo version: Odoo 19. I compared the Odoo 20 documentation on multi-currency, foreign-currency bank accounts and sales currencies: it reads the same as Odoo 19, and the exchange difference settings are unchanged in the Odoo 20 code.
• Edition: Community and Enterprise for currencies, foreign-currency documents, payments, bank journals and realised differences. Automatic Currency Rates and the Unrealized Currencies report are Enterprise only.
• Apps: Invoicing or Accounting, with Purchase and Sales for orders and pricelists. In Community the app is called Invoicing, so read Invoicing where the menu paths below say Accounting.

Before you start

1. The Indian chart of accounts is installed. It sets the exchange difference journal to Exchange Difference, the gain account to Foreign Exchange Profit and the loss account to Foreign Exchange Loss. You’ll confirm them in step 3.
2. Your reference rate is agreed. Decide with your accountant whose rates the books follow, for example your bank’s, and how often they’re updated.
3. You know which currencies you need, for example USD for imports and EUR for exports.
4. You have the details of any foreign-currency bank account you hold, such as an EEFC account.

Step by step

1. Activate currencies. Go to Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Currencies and switch on Active for USD and EUR. Your main currency comes from the company’s country and is shown under Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings ‣ Currencies ‣ Main Currency.
2. Enter rates. Open a currency and, on the Rates tab, click Add a line. Fill in the Date and either Unit per INR or INR per Unit; the second is the familiar “rupees for one dollar” figure. In Enterprise you can tick Automatic Currency Rates in the Currencies section of the settings instead, choose a Service and an Interval (Manually, Daily, Weekly or Monthly), and click the refresh icon to fetch rates now. The documentation names the European Central Bank as the default service and doesn’t list an Indian one, so check the Service list in your own database and compare its rates with your reference before relying on it.
3. Check the exchange difference accounts. In Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings ‣ Default Accounts, under Exchange difference entries, check the Journal, Gain and Loss. This section only appears for users with full accounting rights.
4. Give vendors their currency. On a US supplier’s contact, Sales & Purchase tab, set Supplier Currency to USD. New purchase orders, and the bills created from them, then default to USD.
5. Open a foreign-currency bank journal. In Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Journals, click New, choose the Bank type and set Currency to EUR. In Bank Account, type the account name, click Create and edit and save. Odoo’s documentation recommends leaving Currency blank on that ledger account, because the journal’s currency already limits it.
6. Price exports in EUR. Tick Pricelists under Sales ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings ‣ Pricing. In Sales ‣ Products ‣ Pricelists, create “Export EUR” with Currency set to EUR. To fix EUR prices instead of converting your INR price at each day’s rate, open a product’s Extra Prices smart button and add a rule for that pricelist with a Min. Quantity and Price. Then choose the pricelist in the Pricelist field on each export customer’s Sales & Purchase tab.
7. Raise documents in the currency. On a draft bill or invoice, pick the Currency. Below it, Odoo shows the conversion, in the form 1 INR = x USD. You can overwrite that rate while the document is a draft; the refresh icon resets it to the rate for the invoice date.
8. Register payments. Click Pay, choose the Journal (the EUR bank or your INR bank) and the Payment Date, and select the currency in the Amount field.
9. Month end (Enterprise). Open Accounting ‣ Review ‣ Unrealized Currencies. Use Exchange Rates if your closing rate differs from Odoo’s, then click Adjustment Entry, pick a Journal, an Expense Account and an Income Account, and set the Date and Reversal Date. Odoo posts the adjustment and reverses it on the reversal date.

Worked example: importing in USD, exporting in EUR

A Rajkot maker of agricultural pump sets imports motor components from a US supplier in USD and exports finished pumps to a distributor in Germany in EUR. It has an INR current account and a EUR account, each with its own bank journal. The rates below are illustrative, not market rates.

Date	1 USD	1 EUR
2 June	₹83.00	₹90.00
30 June	₹83.60	₹91.00
2 July	₹84.00	₹91.50

The import. A bill for USD 10,000 dated 2 June is booked at ₹8,30,000 owed to the supplier. On 2 July the company pays USD 10,000 from its INR account, which at ₹84.00 costs ₹8,40,000. When the payment is matched with the bill, Odoo posts ₹10,000 in the Exchange Difference journal to Foreign Exchange Loss. Customs duty and freight paid in rupees are separate costs, which Odoo can add to the product cost through landed costs.

The export. An invoice for EUR 20,000 dated 2 June is booked at ₹18,00,000. On 30 June it’s still unpaid, and the Unrealized Currencies report shows an adjustment of ₹20,000, because EUR 20,000 at ₹91.00 is ₹18,20,000. The accountant posts it dated 30 June with a reversal on 1 July, so June’s balance sheet carries the receivable at the month-end rate. On 2 July the distributor pays EUR 20,000 into the EUR account. At ₹91.50 that’s ₹18,30,000, so Odoo posts a realised gain of ₹30,000 to Foreign Exchange Profit. Because the June adjustment was reversed, the gain isn’t counted twice.

What you should see

• Bills and invoices show amounts in USD or EUR, with the INR conversion under the currency. Their journal items carry both the Amount in Currency and the INR balance.
• After a payment at a different rate, an entry in the Exchange Difference journal. Find it in Accounting ‣ Review ‣ Journal Items, filtered on that journal.
• In the EUR bank journal, each transaction is in EUR, and Odoo stores the INR value alongside it.
• Quotations for export customers show EUR prices from their pricelist.

Troubleshooting

A currency doesn’t appear on the invoice or pricelist. It isn’t active. Switch on Active in Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Currencies.

The rate on a document looks out of date. There’s no rate for that date, so Odoo used the latest earlier one. Add the rate, then click the refresh icon on the draft.

Automatic Currency Rates is shown as an upgrade. You’re on Community, where rates are entered by hand.

No exchange difference entry after a payment. The payment hasn’t been matched with the invoice or bill yet. If the bank journal’s payment methods have no outstanding accounts, Odoo only posts the difference when the bank transaction is reconciled. Also check that Gain and Loss are filled in.

EUR prices change every day. The pricelist has no fixed EUR prices, so Odoo converts your INR price at the latest rate. Add Extra Prices rules.

Default Accounts is missing from the settings. Your user doesn’t have full accounting rights.

The EUR journal won’t take a USD transaction. A journal with a currency only handles that currency. Record it in the right journal.

Related setup

• How to set up your chart of accounts in Odoo
• How to set up bank reconciliation in Odoo
• Vendor bills and payments in Odoo Accounting
• Pricelists and discounts in Odoo Sales
• Inventory valuation and landed costs in Odoo
• How to set up GST in Odoo 19
• Trading across several currencies and want the accounts right from day one? See Odoo implementation.

Official references

• Odoo 19 documentation: Multi-currency system
• Odoo 19 documentation: Manage a bank account in a foreign currency
• Odoo 19 documentation: Foreign currencies in Sales
• Odoo 19 documentation: Payments

How this guide was checked: menu paths, field names and Enterprise-only status were checked against the Odoo 19 documentation and the Odoo 19 code (accounting settings, invoice currency rates and the Indian chart of accounts) in October 2026. The automatic rate services live in an Enterprise module whose code isn’t public, so the service list wasn’t checked beyond the documentation. The exchange rates and worked example are illustrative and weren’t run on a live database, so there are no screenshots; labels can vary slightly with your installed apps and language.