"Hey Marco,
As our company works with foreign currencies, regularly, and I wanted to know the best practice when it comes to administering exchange rates. Are there common considerations when dealing with exchange rates in Strategic Sourcing?"
"Currency conversions, or exchange rates, are very important for customers who work internationally with different currencies. We will need to upload initial exchange rate sets if we wish to use foreign currencies in our events and Strategic Sourcing documents. If we do not upload any exchange rate sets, users will receive an error message if an unmapped currency is selected on their event or project."
Administering Exchange Rates
"Lets quickly go over the main considerations; how it works and how often they should be updated."
How it Works
In order to run projects in any currency other than the base currency, currency conversion rate mappings must be configured from the specified currency/currencies to the base currency of your site, bilaterally.
For example, the base currency of your site is the European Euro (EUR).
In order to run a project in Singapore Dollar (SGD), you would need to create a currency conversion rate mapping from SGD to EUR and from EUR to SGD.
Administering Exchange Rate
Step 1
Find the exchange rate from the base currency (EUR) to the foreign currency (SGD).
Step 2
Find the inversive rate for the same currency (SGD to EUR).
Step 3
Complete a CSV file similar to the below:
UTF8
FromCurrency,ToCurrency,Rate,Date
SGD,EUR,1.39,Tue Aug 23 00:00:00 PST 2023
EUR,SGD,0.72,Tue Aug 23 00:00:00 PST 2023
The date field can be tricky, as it must be in the format: Day Month Date Time Timezone Year.
(Ideal rates would be longer than two digits for precision)
Step 4
Go to Manage﹥Administration﹥Site Manager﹥Data Import/Export﹥Data Import/Export﹥Import Currency Conversion Rates.
Choose your import operation and upload the CSV file.
System Rates
The exchange rate set, System Currency Conversion Rates refers to the system rates that are imported under Data Import/Export﹥ Import Currency Conversion Rates.
There are no default values that are imported initially into the system like some other standard master data fields.
Customers will want to import the initial values for the currencies they wish to use, and add new sets and update their system list as needed.
Exchange Rate Sets
Within Manage﹥Administration﹥Event Manager, lies Exchange Rates.
SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing allows customers to maintain multiple Exchange Rate Sets for Project Owners creating events to choose from.
Formatting the CurrencyConversionRates.csv File
Select each "i" to learn more about each CurrencyConversionRate.csv file Heading.
Frequency of Exchange Rate Updates
Exchange Rates refresh with the global market constantly. For SAP Ariba Exchange Rates, Customer Administrators and Currency Managers will want to ensure they have a plan in place for refreshing exchange rates to adapt to the changing market. Additionally, administrators should consider aligning with their Finance department on the refresh cadence.
Scheduled imports are suggested via ITK or manual administration as needed.
Currency Managers and Customer Administrators should be notified in advance, if system rates need to be updated or new sets created for an upcoming event.
"When a sourcing event is published, the exchange rate that was selected during setup will be used throughout the entire duration of the event.
This means that if an event has been published prior to an exchange rate update, the event's exchange rates will not change while the event is open. Instead, the exchange rate will remain constant until the event ends, and the buyer and supplier can decide on how to proceed after a winner has been identified."