HubSpot CRM has been growing in popularity in the last couple of years, and of of the noticeable changes from earlier is that the CRM system is becoming a very real threat to market leaders in the enterprise segment.
This also translates to new needs in both overall solution and features to facilitate for new needs, and one of the key aspects for larger international companies is proper handling of different currencies into shared reports for performance and forecasting.
There were already some advanced features and methods to solve for these challenges that a lot of users are not aware of, and even more updates arise as the segment becomes more important for HubSpot's user base.
Understanding the currency settings
The first thing any company should do is to make sure you have set up the relevant currencies you need to use in your account. In order to keep the interface as simple as possible, you will only have access to use currencies you have set up for your account. You can sett this up go going to your settings, and selecting "Account Defaults", then open the Currency-tab.
If you use more than one currency in your business, you should set your "company currency" meaning the default currency you will use in overall reporting etc.
All other currencies is set up with a static exchange rate based on your "company currency". The exchange rates are not updated automatically, but can be manually updated in the same settings over time.
Working with multiple currencies in reports
When working with a deal, HubSpot will default to assume the value in you "Amount" is stated in your default "Company currency" unless a currency is specified in the "Currency" property as well. Working with you main currency in pretty straight forward in most ways, but when you use other currencies, there are a few things to consider.
As mentioned, if you have set a currency on your deal, the "Amount" should be defined in the selected currency. You will also have access to a new property called Amount in company currency. This is where HubSpot automatically calculates the value of your deal to your main currency based on the exchange rate from your settings.
Example: If you create a deal with 1000 USD amount, and the exchange rate to Euro as your company currency is set to 0.9, then the Amount will be 1000 and the Amount in company currency will be 900.
You can then use the company currency to easily create reports of all your deals, knowing that they will be reported according to the same currency and compared correctly.
Advanced currency properties
Beyond just the total value of a transaction, many companies will have several other values related to a deal that should also be affected by the currency. Examples like cost or margins related to the deal is typical cases of this, that you would often set up custom properties to track. Be aware when setting up new properties like this that the default setting is for these to be stated in your company currency, which is usually not how this data is entered. Make sure you check the "Use record currency ..." checkbox to make sure HubSpot understands that the stated value is in your given currency.
Now that you have registered your data, you will notice that there is no "Data in company currency" option ready, so you can also solve this by setting up a second custom property for yourself, and this time if will be a calculated property. This time you want to leave the checkbox empty as this should be company currency. Use the formula to multiply the cost (or other data) with the exchange rate.
This will then be updated to the correct value based on the selected currency, and the exchange rate from your settings.
Adjusting exchange rates over time
If you need a higher level of accuracy in your reports you want to adjust for exchange rates as these change constantly. The most accurate method would be to either manually update or use a third party application to update the exchange rate for each deal individually after they close. I will not go in details about this method now, but you can also gain some accuracy by updating your exchange rates in HubSpot frequently.
HubSpot will keep track of the edits you make to exchange rates in your account. Therefore, we can use a function to adjust the calculation above, where we use the exchange rate form a given time, rather than the most recent value.
Here is an example of how you would adjust the formula to use exchange rate based on when a deal was closed.
This way, each deal will be updated based on the relevant exchange rate at the correct time. This can create a huge difference, especially for long time reporting and comparing to results from a time when the exchange rate was noticeably different.
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