Implementing Currency Conversion

The key elements provided by SAP HANA Cloud are as follows:

• A set of tables to store master data about currencies, exchange rate types, and the exchange rate values.

• A semantic typeAmount with Currency which you set for the measure you want to convert.

• Calculation view settings to define, for each measure, how the conversion should be processed (which rate and conversion dates should be applied, where to find the source and target currency).

SAP HANA Calculation Views implement conversion mechanisms in a similar way as SAP solutions such as S/4HANA or BW/4HANA. This allows you to calculate converted data on-the-fly, or even to simulate conversion currencies with different rates, conversion dates, and so on.

Standard tables exist in most SAP systems (in particular, SAP Business Suite and SAP S/4HANA), and SAP HANA Cloud can use them to compute data conversion.

To enable currency conversion in SAP HANA Cloud, these tables must be available in the SAP HANA Cloud database. The tables are not provided by SAP HANA Cloud by default and you must provide them and update them yourself, either by creating a synonym to tables from an external schema, or using any of the available data provisioning tools.

When a measure contains a money amount, and if you want to enable conversion, you need to change its semantic type to Amount with Currency Code.

In the Columns tab of the semantic node, select a measure. Now, using the Semantics dropdown list, choose this semantic type: Amount with Currency Code.

Note

The semantic type Amount with Currency Code can be used even if conversion is not required. You would do this to provide currency information to the front-end tool so that it can display the amount alongside the currency.

In this case, you only have to set the Display Currency property to identify the currency in which the amounts are expressed. Do not set the Conversion flag.

After assigning the semantic type, Amount with Currency Code, you then must enable conversion and define the main parameters used for conversion.

It is important to carefully define how the exceptions must be handled when you are converting data. In addition, to reduce the risk of conversion failure, make sure that the currency conversion tables TCUR* in your SAP HANA system are updated on a regular basis, in particular in a side-by-side scenario where they should always be in sync with the data imported from the remote SAP system.

By default, the precision of all values is two digits in SAP ERP tables.

As some currencies require accuracy in value, decimal shift moves the decimal points according to the settings in the TCURX currency table. If you want to round the result value after currency conversion to the number of digits of the target currency, select the Rounding checkbox.

A decimal shift back is necessary if the results of the calculation views are interpreted in ABAP. The ABAP layer, by default, always executes the decimal shift. In such cases, a decimal shift back helps you to avoid wrong numbers due to a double shift.

It is possible to reuse the currency conversion settings for other measures in the same node of a Calculation View. This reduces manual definition and allows for more consistency by avoiding mistakes. The settings can be applied to several measures at the same time.

The currency conversion settings can be reused in two different ways:

• Reference

  The settings defined in a measure are applied as is in the other measures that you select, and cannot be modified in the other measures.

  In other words, the settings will always remain consistent and only the source measure for currency conversion setting can be changed, thus impacting the ones that reference it.

• Copy

  The setting defined in a measure is just copied to the other measures, but they are not bound to each other. The currency conversion settings of the other measures can be freely modified.

The input parameter can also be described as a prompt, in that it asks the user what currency to use.

If you want to define the currency at runtime, when the view is executed, you can create an input parameter.

VARCHAR (5) is the way that the currency code is defined in the TCUR* tables, so to be consistent, we recommend that you define the input parameter with the same data type.