Multi-Currency Explained
Earnest is built for global teams. If your reps sell in one currency, are paid in another, and your finance team reports in a third — Earnest handles all three cleanly. This article explains the three currency layers, how exchange rates are applied, and when conversions happen. Multi-currency is included on every plan, including the free one — see pricing.
The Three Currencies
Every commission calculation in Earnest touches up to three currencies:
| Currency | Set On | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Quota Currency | Each user | The currency in which quotas are defined and attainment is measured. This is the "working" currency for the commission engine. |
| Payout Currency | Each user | The currency the rep is physically paid in. If it differs from the quota currency, Earnest converts the final commission amount. |
| Base Currency | Organization | Your company's reporting currency. Used for consolidated financial views and payroll export totals. |
Example
A London-based AE might have:
- Quota Currency: GBP (their deals close in pounds)
- Payout Currency: GBP (they're paid in pounds)
- Base Currency (org): USD (HQ reports in US dollars)
A Tokyo-based SDR on the same team might have:
- Quota Currency: JPY
- Payout Currency: JPY
- Base Currency (org): USD
How Exchange Rates Are Applied
Earnest applies exchange rate conversions at two distinct stages:
1. Activity Import (Activity → Quota Currency)
When an activity (deal, booking, etc.) is imported with a currency that differs from the rep's quota currency, Earnest converts the activity amount at the time of commission calculation.
Example: A rep with a GBP quota currency closes a deal worth €50,000. At calculation time, Earnest looks up the EUR → GBP rate and converts €50K → ~£43K. The £43K is what counts toward the rep's GBP quota.
The conversion happens at calculation time using the rate effective on the deal's booking date — a deal is priced when it books, so recalculating a period always reproduces the same numbers. Nothing needs to be pre-converted or stored on the activity: every run reads the same central daily rate table (see below). Some older activity records may still carry a quotaCurrencyAmount/exchangeRateUsed pair from an earlier version of Earnest that cached conversions at import time; those locked historical rates are still honored for the rep they were converted for.
2. Payout Generation (Commission → Payout/Base Currency)
After the commission engine calculates the final earned amount in the quota currency, Earnest performs up to two final conversions:
- Quota → Payout Currency (for the rep's earnings): stored on the payout record.
- Quota → Base Currency (for your finance team): stored alongside for reporting.
Both conversion rates are frozen at the time the payout is generated, so the numbers on a published statement will never drift due to future rate changes.
How It Works Step-by-Step
- Activity imported → amount stored in its original currency.
- Commission calculated → activities converted to the rep's quota currency (if needed). Attainment and commission math happen entirely in the quota currency.
- Payout generated → final commission converted to the payout currency and the base currency. Exchange rates are locked in at this point.
- Statement published → the PDF shows the final payout amount in the rep's payout currency, with a conversion note showing the rate used.
Exchange Rate Source
Earnest keeps a central exchange-rate table that a scheduled job refreshes once per day — it pulls the latest published rates and stores them centrally. Every conversion then reads from that table, so commission runs are fast and deterministic: there's no per-calculation call out to an external service, and every rep in your organization converts against the same daily rates.
Rates are date-anchored — when converting an activity, the system uses the rate for the activity's booking date for historical accuracy. For payout conversions, it uses the rate available at the time of payout generation, which is then frozen onto the payout so published statements never drift.
Important: Earnest does not let you manually override exchange rates. If you need a specific rate for a deal, adjust the activity amount in the quota currency directly.
Where Currencies Appear in the UI
| Screen | What You See |
|---|---|
| Rep Dashboard | Quota and commission in the rep's quota currency. If payout currency differs, a conversion note is shown. |
| Admin Payouts Table | Each row shows commission in the rep's quota currency, plus a base currency equivalent column for org-wide totals. |
| Commission Statement (PDF) | Final Payout section shows the quota-currency amount and, if applicable, the converted payout-currency amount with the exchange rate. |
| Payroll Export | Amounts in each rep's payout currency, plus a base currency total column. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What happens if the activity currency and the quota currency are the same? No conversion occurs. The activity amount flows directly into the commission calculation at its face value.
Q: Can I change a rep's quota or payout currency mid-period? You can update currencies at any time, but it only affects future calculations. Published payouts are frozen with the currencies and rates that were active at generation time.
Q: Does Earnest support crypto or non-standard currencies? Earnest validates currencies against the ISO 4217 standard list. If your currency has a valid ISO code, it's supported. Cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, etc.) are not currently supported as they lack stable ISO codes.
Q: What if the exchange rate service is unavailable? Because rates are synced once a day into a central table and all calculations read from it, a temporary outage of the upstream provider doesn't interrupt commission runs — they keep using the most recently synced rates. The system will never silently skip a conversion: if no rate exists at all for a pair, the calculation surfaces an error so you can investigate.
Q: How do split credits interact with multi-currency? Each activity has its own currency. When the activity is credited (fully or partially via a split), the credited amount is converted to the receiving rep's quota currency individually. Two reps on the same deal with different quota currencies will each see the amount converted to their respective currencies.