How Are Currencies Handled?

How Are Currencies Handled?


Sales Cookie in designed to handle currencies in every aspect of your sales incentive program including:
  • Converting between different currencies found in various sales transactions
  • Assigning rewards to users based on their own currency settings
  • Resolving ambiguous currency symbols found in transactions
  • Handling fluctuating exchange rates

Default Currency
Each workspace has a default currency (under "Settings > Currencies"). When we encounter a value in a different currency (ex: in transaction data), we always convert it to the workspace's default currency. Once a calculation completes (using the workspace's currency), we convert rewards back to each user's currency. This of course requires the ability to convert between currencies using exchange rates. It also requires the ability to understand ambiguous currency symbols. Finally, it requires the ability to identify and extract currency symbols found within transaction data. Let's go over each of those in more detail.

Exchange Rates
Each workspace lets you choose how you want to convert between currencies (under "Settings > Currencies"). By default, all conversions are manual, so you must specify an exchange rate. Whenever an exchange rate is missing but needed, we will generate a system alert to ask you to provide one. However, you can choose to use automatic conversion. We will then call Visa APIs to obtain exchange rates - without you having to provide and update exchange rates. You can also choose to use a semi-automated mode, where we will call Visa APIs, but only for currencies you did not provide an exchange rate for. Finally, we will always verify exchange rates you provide, and alert you if there is too much of a discrepancy vs. current exchange rates.

Currency Symbols
Each workspace lets you choose how you want to map currency symbols to actual currencies (under "Settings > Currencies"). Some currency symbols (ex: "€") or currency codes (ex: "USD") are unambiguous. They clearly identify to a single currency - without any possible confusion. Other currency symbols (ex: "$") are ambiguous - they could refer to the United States Dollar, the Australian Dollar, etc. When an ambiguous currency symbol is encountered, we will generate a system alert to ask you to provide a mapping (for example, mapping an ambiguous "$" to "United States Dollar"). You can also choose to use a semi-automated mode, where all ambiguous symbols are mapped to be your default currency, unless explicitly listed in a mapping table.

Currencies in Transactions
Imported transactions will often include currencies in their data. For example, a transaction may include values such as "123$", "USD 123", "$123", etc. When you import transactions, we analyze data to identify potential currency symbols. During field mapping, we will present our best guess to you. If you confirm that currencies are indeed present, we will extract them into a separate field. All conversions will be automatically handled when performing calculations. Also, calculation logs always describe conversions, so it is easy to audit conversions.

Using Your Default Currency
As briefly mentioned above, we will use your default workspace currency for the following:
  • When performing sales incentive calculations
  • When generating sales incentive reports
  • When applying plan settings (ex: maximum total payout)

Of course, user rewards are always computed using their own currency.
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