Currency Conversion Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 7.5

version for the Microsoft platform
version for SAP NetWeaver

Target Audience
Technical Consultants
System Administrators

PUBLIC
Document version: 1.1 – 08/20/2010
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Table of Contents
Currency Conversion................................................................................................................... 5
Setting up an Application ......................................................................................................... 8
Dimension Property Setup ....................................................................................................... 9
Business Rules Setup ............................................................................................................ 13
Defining Script Logic .............................................................................................................. 16
Exchange Rate Import/Update ............................................................................................... 18
Loading Financial Data .......................................................................................................... 19
Executing the Currency Translation DM Package ................................................................... 20

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 Currency Conversion
You use this function to convert local currency values into one or more reporting or group
currencies in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

Notably, you can translate the financial data reported by consolidation units into the group
currency of the consolidation group. The consolidation system typically collects the financial data
reported by consolidation units in the local currency. You need to translate this data into the
group currency before you can create consolidated financial statements. You use the Currency
Conversion function if the local currency of one or more consolidation units differs from the group
currency.

Prerequisites
The prerequisites for running currency conversions are as follows:

The application set includes a rate application where exchange rates are stored. You
have assigned this rate application to any application that utilizes it.

The application itself includes a currency-type dimension.

The currency-type dimension includes the properties REPORTING, whose values are Y or
blank, and CURRENCY_TYPE, whose values are G for group currency, T for transaction
currency, or L for local currency.

The entity-type dimension includes the property CURRENCY, whose values are valid input
currencies.

The category-type dimension must have the same properties as the category-type
dimension of ApShell. Even though the system does not use these properties, the
program checks whether they exist or not.

The account-type dimension includes the property RATETYPE, whose values are valid
accounts in the rate application.

The time-type dimension includes the properties YEAR, PERIOD, TIMEID, and
MONTHNUM.

The data source-type dimension is not mandatory for currency translation, but if you
include it, the dimension must include the following properties:

o DATASRC_TYPE, whose values include the following:

I – Input

M – Manual Adjustment

A – Automatic Adjustment or Elimination

L – Data source level (use only for consolidation)

o IS_CONVERTED, whose values include the following:

N – These members are ignored in the conversion.

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 Y (or blank) – These members are converted from LC into the desired
currency unless the members are flagged as requiring manual
adjustment; these members have their currency conversions entered
manually.

G – These members are copied from the reporting currency of the

GROUP that is being translated into the currency member corresponding
to the given group.

The flow-type dimension is not mandatory for currency translation, but if you include it,
the dimension must include the property FLOW_TYPE.

The input currency-type dimension within the applicable rate application includes the
property MD, whose values are M for multiply rates or D for divide rates.

The appropriate FxTrans logic file is available.

The default logic includes a call to the FxTrans logic file, if the translation is to be
performed whenever data is entered.

Features
This function offers the following features:

You can carry out reference translations, and you can record translation differences. This
makes currency-related impacts transparent, and you can ensure the accounting
consistency of the translated data (for example, the matching of retained earnings in the
balance sheet and annual net income in the income statement).

You can use different currency translation keys (for example, periodic and cumulative), or
you can refrain from doing a specific translation if individual data records are already in
the target currency.

You can group together the accounting objects to be translated (for example, FS items)
as selections in various ways, for example:

o Where a selection represents exactly one combination of currency translation key

and exchange rate type.

o Where for each selection you specify exactly one specific differential accounting
object for the translation difference.

o Where the selections represent steps, which the system executes consecutively.

Activities
In order to perform currency conversions in Planning and Consolidation, you must do the
following:

1. Set up an application to run currency conversions. See Setting up an Application [Page

8].

2. Define the required dimension properties. See Dimension Property Setup [Page 9].

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 3. Define the business rules that calculate currency conversions. See Business Rules Setup
[Page 13].

4. Define the script logic that runs the currency conversions. See Defining Script Logic
[Page 16].

5. Load exchange rates to be used for currency conversion. See Exchange Rate
Import/Update [Page 18].

6. Load financial data for which to execute the currency conversion. See Loading Financial
Data [Page 19].

7. (Optional) Execute the currency conversion Data Manager package to run the currency
conversion manually. See Executing the Currency Translation DM Package [Page 20].

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 Setting up an Application
Before you can run currency conversions, you must set up a main application and an associated
Rate application.

The main application is any reporting-type application. For example, a main application is a
Financial or Legal Consolidation application. The main application must reference a Rate
application, and must contain a currency-type (type R) dimension.

Procedure
1. From the application set, make sure there are at least two applications defined:

o Financial or Legal Consolidation – The main application containing all financial

data.

o Rate – A reference application containing all currency exchange rates.

2. Make sure the Rate application contains the following dimensions:

o Rate – Details the different types of rate (for example, Average and End-of-
period).

o RateSrc – Stores the type of Rate value source like input or calculated rate.

o InputCurrency – Stores each applicable local currency.

o Time and Category – Can be shared by all the applications involved in

consolidation.

The Rate (Account dimension for Rate application) and RateSrc (Entity
dimension for Rate application) are specific and used only by the Rate
application.

Result
There are two applications in the application set: the Financial (or Consolidation) application,
containing all financial data, and the Rate application, containing all currency exchange rates.

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 Dimension Property Setup
Currency translation can run on any type of reporting application. Before you run it, check the
following required dimension properties – these are mandatory for currency translation to run
successfully.

Features
The following dimension properties are required:

Dimension Property Description

ACCOUNT RATETYPE This determines the value of this

property. It must be a valid member of
the RATE account dimension, such as
AVG conversion rate for average, or
END for end of period.

This value is optional.

CATEGORY CATEGORY_FOR_OPE, This must have the same properties as

FX_DIFFERENCE_ONLY, the Category dimension of ApShell.
FX_SOURCE_CATEGORY,
OPENING_PERIOD, Even though the system does not use
OPENING_YEAR, these properties, the program checks
RATE_CATEGORY, whether they exist or not.
RATE_PERIOD,
RATE_YEAR

ENTITY CURRENCY This indicates the local currency for the

current ENTITY, for example, for
ENTITY US, the currency is USD, for
FRANCE, the currency is EUR.

The value of this property must be a

valid member of input currency-type
dimension.

CURRENCY CURRENCY_TYPE The currency dimension must include

the properties REPORTING, whose
values are Y or blank, and
CURRENCY_TYPE, whose values are
G for group currency, R for reporting
currency, T for transaction currency, or L
for local currency.

For group currency, this value is

mainly used for Consolidation,
so for other types of reporting
application, it can be omitted..

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 Dimension Property Description

TIME YEAR This contains the year information of ID.

The YEAR property allows you to filter,
sort, and report based on the year. You
must place the YEAR properties in
chronological order in the file, in order for
the EVTIM function in Interface for Excel
to give offsets correctly.

For example, if ID is 2009.AUG, YEAR is

2009.

PERIOD This indicates which period current time

belongs to. The PERIOD property allows
you to filter, sort, and report based on
the period.

For example, if ID is 2009.AUG, period is

AUG.

TIMEID The system uses this property to lookup

rates from the rate application. This
property is a numerical value for current
time.

For example, 2009.AUG, TIMEID is

20090800.

This is one of the most important

properties that are required for the
currency translation to work.

MONTHNUM This determines the last period of the

prior fiscal year. This property helps to
determine the opening period rate in the
rate formula. This takes the numerical
value of month. For example, 2009.AUG,
MONTHNUM is 8.

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 Dimension Property Description

INPUTCURRENCY MD This indicates the relationship between

current currency and the standard
currency. It can take two values:

D – Dividend. If property MD does not

exist, D is default relationship.

M – Multiple. If the rate of a currency to

the standard one is a very small number,
for example Euro to USD, we can store
the amount in Euros equal to 1 USD,
and mark it as M. This property can be
used to improve accuracy.

For some optional dimensions, such as

data source and flow, if they do not exist,
currency translation still runs
successfully. However, if they exist, they
impact the translation process. In this
case, the following properties in these
dimensions are also mandatory.

DATASRC DATASRC_TYPE This determines whether the data is

input balances and their related manual
adjustments. The value of I and M in the
DATASRC_TYPE property means that
they are either Input or Manual
adjustment. The value of A in the
DATASRC_TYPE property means that
they are either automatic adjustment or
elimination.

Only the member with

DATASRC_TYPE A is
converted..

IS_CONVERTED When the IS_CONVERTED property is

set to N or blank, members are ignored
in the conversion.

When set to Y, members are converted

from the local currency to the desired
currency. When set to G means that the
figures are entered directly in Reporting
Currencies and only converted to Group
Currencies.

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 Dimension Property Description

FLOW FLOW TYPE This defines the type of flow of the

dimension. The FLOW_TYPE property
can take many values, but the most
important is the value CLOSING. The
business rule of currency translation with
FORCE_CLOSING = Y makes use of it.

This dimension is needed for business

rules calculations to breakdown account
activity or flow.

For example, some accounts, like Fixed

Assets, have a FLOW dimension which
contains Opening Balances, Additions,
Deletions, Transfers and Ending
Balances.

Activities
1. From the main (or Reporting) application, define the required dimension properties, as
described in the table above.

2. Process the dimensions.

3. Define business rules as described in Business Rules Setup [Page 13].

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 Business Rules Setup
This function converts a currency value based on the RATETYPE property. Planning and
Consolidation gets the AVG or END rate value from the Rate cube and calculates the required
value.

Features
Often a financial statement needs a more complex rule for CTA calculation or sometimes a
specific account does not need to be converted. In addition, if a user has a flow-type dimension
(Acctdetail), it is more complex. For this reason, this table has additional columns.

Here are the details of each column in the Currency Conversion business rule:

Column Name Length Description

Account rate type 10 The value of the RATETYPE property of the source account.

Source flow 20 The member of the source flow.

Destination
20 The ID of the destination account (or blank equals source).
account

Destination flow 20 The ID of the destination flow (or blank equals source).

Formula 200 Rate formula - The factor to apply to the source value.

Force closing 1 Force closing without creating a new line.

If Y in an Ytd application, the rate is applied to the periodic

Apply to periodic 1
value.

Entity FX type 20 FX type Linked to the entity-type property FX_TYPE.

Remarks 250 A free description of the translation rule.

Account Rate Type

This is the main driving field, controlling the translation rule to apply to a given account, according
to the value of the RATETYPE property of the account.

One RATETYPE can generate more than one translated value. This can be defined by
entering more than one entry with the same RATETYPE in the business rule interface for
currency rules.

Source Flow

This field, combined with the Account Rate Type field, completes the definition of the criteria that
drive the applicability of a given rule. In other words, the instruction can be read as follows: “if the
account has the RATETYPE property and the Source Flow is as defined, then apply this rule”.

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The Source Flow field can contain the following values:

A valid base level or parent member ID from the flow-type dimension

A list of members of the flow-type dimension, as defined filtering the members using a
value of the DIMLIST property (or any property whose name begins with DIMLIST).

If left blank means it will apply to all the base level members.

If Flow is not used in the application then this field is left blank.

Formula

This field can contain any arithmetic expression combining any defined rate as per the account-
type dimension of the rate cube. All rates with the RATETYPE property equal to FXTRANS can
be used. In the RATE_FORMULA field, the rates must be enclosed in square brackets. For
example, [END], [END] – [AVG].

The OPENING value of any rate can also be specified adding the prefix OPE to the rate itself. For
example, [OPEEND] – [END] , [OPEAVG].

These OPENING rates do not need to exist in the rate cube. For example, if there is an [END]
rate, the currency translation also automatically recognizes a rate called [OPEEND], which simply
corresponds to the [END] rate of the opening period (typically last period of last year).

In addition, the Formula field supports the following keywords:

[AS_IS] – Leave untouched a value already existing in the destination currency. This
keyword cannot be combined with other rates in the same line. The only valid exception
is the format [AS_IS]*-1.

[COPYLC] – This copies the value of the Local currency into the reporting currency, that
is, this corresponds to applying a rate of 1 in the translation.

Destination Account

This field only supports an explicit account ID or can be left blank.

Destination Flow

This field only supports an explicit flow ID or can be left blank.

Apply to Periodic

This field must only be used in an YTD application for the cases in which the currency conversion
to be performed on the periodic values and not on the YTD values.

If this field is set to Y, the engine calculates the difference between current period and prior
period amounts, and it applies to it the rate specified in Formula field. At the end, the result is
added back to prior period’s value and written in current period.

Apply Force Closing

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This field can be set to Y to force the generation of an additional record where the member of the
destination flow is the closing balance. The closing balance member of the FLOW dimension is
identified as the member with the property FLOW_TYPE = CLOSING.

Entity FX Type

This field can be used to enforce a given set of rules to only apply to a desired set of ENTITIES. If
this field has a value, the rule is only applied to the entities having a matching value in a similarly
named property (FX_TYPE) of the entity-type dimension.

Activities
1. In the Admin Console, choose the applicable application, then choose Business Rules,
and then Currency Conversion rules table.

2. In the Currency Conversion rule table, delete the existing content.

3. Enter information in the Currency Conversion rule table based on the information in the
table above.

4. Choose Save without validation, and then choose Validate Currency Conversion rule
table.

We recommend that you first save and then validate so that if there are errors
during the validation you do not lose the contents of the business rules.

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 Defining Script Logic
You use this to run a new logic file currency conversion. Currency conversion typically runs by
default when default logic runs. Currency conversion is handled by the program
CURR_CONVERSION.

Procedure
1. *RUN_PROGRAM CURR_CONVERSION(<parameters list>)

2. Set up the following list of attributes for relevant dimensions in addition to the required
attributes:

Dimension Property

ACCOUNT RATETYPE

DATASRC_TYPE (I, M, A, or L)
DATASRC
IS_CONVERTED (Y, G, or N)

ENTITY CURRENCY (Local currency)

FLOW FLOW_TYPE (This is used to find the closing flow)

CURRENCY CURRENCY_TYPE (Reporting, Local, or group)

YEAR

PERIOD
TIMEID
TIMEID

MONTHNUM

INPUTCURRENCY (with Rate cube) MD (indicator of multiple or divide)

The data source-type dimension is not mandatory for planning, and currency translation
can be run without it. If you choose to include a data source-type dimension in a planning
cube, the attributes must be set up, as they are checked in currency conversion program.

The flow-type dimension is not mandatory for planning, and currency translation can be
run without it. If you choose to include a flow-type dimension in a planning cube, the
attribute needs to exist in the flow-type dimension to enable currency conversion.

Example
The following is an example of the script logic used in the SAP NetWeaver version:

*RUN_PROGRAM CURR_CONVERSION

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CATEGORY = %C_Category_SET%

GROUP = %GROUPS_SET%

TID_RA = %TIME_SET%

OTHER = [ENTITY=%ENTITY_SET%]

RATEENTITY = Global

*ENDRUN_PROGRAM

Global must be the valid member ID that is set in the rate entity-type dimension.

The following is an example of the script logic used in the Microsoft version:

*RUN_STORED_PROCEDURE=SPRUNCONVERSION(‘%APP%’,’%CATEGORY_SET%’,”,’GLOBAL
’,’%SCOPETABLE%’,’%LOGTABLE%’)

The SPRUNCONVERSION stored procedure performs currency translation calculations using the
Currency Conversion business rules table.

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 Exchange Rate Import/Update
The Rate application stores the exchange rates for currency conversion. You use this to load
exchange rates for doing currency conversion.

Features
For the selection of the correct rate, the following rules apply:

The source currency is derived from the property CURRENCY of the entity being
translated.

The rate to be applied during translation, such as END, AVG, HIST, and so on, is derived
from the property RATETYPE of the account being translated.

The valid rate indicators are those corresponding to an account of the rate application
belonging to the group FX rate.

The system does not convert any accounts with a rate type that is not a part of the
currency conversion business rules, and, for the Microsoft version, converts all accounts
with a blank rate type with a factor of 1. For the NetWeaver version, if the rate type is left
blank, the values are ignored for that account.

Activities
There are several ways to upload the data to the Rate application, such as using the Data
Manager package Import, or to use dynamic templates to send data from the input schedule.

If EVDRE reports are used, the rate account-type dimension and input currency-type dimension
can be set in the rows, and the time-type dimension can be set in the columns. You save the
EVDRE as an input schedule to send data to the Rate application. Input schedules such as these
can also be saved as a template in a library for sharing and reuse.

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 Loading Financial Data
You use this to load the financial data for executing the currency conversion.

Procedure
After loading the financial data you must create a report to validate that the numbers loaded
match those from the source system. The report shows the source data that has been loaded.

To create the report:

1. Create an EVDRE report to validate and use the RptCurrency dimension in the columns,
and the Account dimension in the rows.

2. Set the parameters to show the local currency (LC) and USD together in the report.

3. Choose Expand all. Check that the LC is populated, and USD is displayed as 0.00.

4. Enter the LC value, and send data to the server to have USD and Euro calculated
automatically. This shows converted values as the default logic includes FXTrans.lgf
logic.

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 Executing the Currency Translation DM Package
You can use the Data Manager package Currency Translation to run currency conversion logic
based on a user–defined selection. This is an alternative to running currency translation in the
logic file, which can have performance issues, or as an alternative to resubmitting data after
changing a rate value.

Procedure
1. In the Action Pane, choose Home, then Data Manager, and then Run a data
management package. Select the FX Restatement package in Financial Processes, set
the parameters, and choose Finish.

2. Choose View Status to check whether the package completed successfully.

3. Choose View Details. The details of the task are shown.

4. Choose Formula log to see more details of the task, such as how many records were
submitted and how many were successful.

Result
The currency conversion procedure is complete.

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