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How to Automate Currency Exchange Rate Updates in Business Central/NAV

If you do any business across borders or if your home country uses multiple currencies, keeping up with changing currency exchange rates is both crucial and, at least traditionally, highly tedious. If your business is still using manual methods to update your exchange rates and you are using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or NAV, there is a quick and easy way to automate this process.

Starting with NAV 2016, Microsoft added functionality to update exchange rates using an internet XML feed.  This process involves creating an Exchange Rate Service and then scheduling it using the Job Queue functionality. Once you set it up, the process will retrieve exchange rates and update them on a schedule automatically.

Setup the Exchange Rate Service

Let’s walk through the set-up process step by step.

From the Currencies Page, select Exchange Rate Services on the Ribbon.

screenshot highlight Exchange Rate Services in NAV

Open the page and select New.

currency rate services screenshot with new highlighted

In this window, put in the following details for your new Currency Exchange Rate Service:

currency exchange rate screenshot 3

Next, open the Field Mapping area and populate the Source, Default Value, and Transformation Rule columns as follows:

  • Source Field:
    • Parent Node for currency code: /channel/item/targetCurrency
    • Currency Code: /channel/item/targetCurrency
    • Starting Date: /channel/item/pubDate
    • Exchange Rate Amount: /channel/item/exchangeRate
  • Default Value:
    • Relational Exch. Rate Amount: 1
  • Transformation Rule:
    • Create A New Service (FLOAT_DATE). See Below.

FLOATRATE configuration screen for currency update service screenshot

Next, you will need to create a New FLOAT_DATE transformation rule to handle the dates in the XML format. Click the dropdown for the Starting Date Transformation Rule and press New.

currency exchange rate screenshot 5

Fill out your New Rule form as follows:

  • Code: FLOAT_DATE
  • Description: Floatrate date transformation
  • Transformation Type: Substring
  • Next Transformation Rule: US_DATE_FORMAT
  • Starting Text: “ ” (THIS IS A SPACE NOT BLANK)
  • Ending Text: “ GMT” (This is a Space, then GMT)
currency exchange rate screenshot 6

Press OK to exit the rule. Then select this new Transformation rule on your FLOATRATE service for the starting date field mapping.

currency exchange rate screenshot 7

Enable the FLOATRATE Service

Now that you have created the service, you need to enable it. Press the Enable Button, which will create a job queue entry (if it does not in your version you will need to manually create a Job Queue Entry). You should get a message to open the Job Queue Entry created.

currency exchange rate screenshot 8

Review and update the Job Queue Entry and set to Ready. Then, make any changes you would like to the Job Queue entry (add a description, set the starting time, days to run, etc.). Set the No. of Minutes between runs to 1440 (24 hours).

Note that the Job Queue Entry must be in Hold status to edit.

 Set Status to Ready to schedule the Job Queue Entry when you are finished editing.

currency exchange rate screenshot 9

 

Check your Service to see the results:

Now that you have set up and enabled your service, open the Currency Exchange Services page (you can get there from the currencies page the same way you did in step 1).

Press the Preview button to see the Log of the currency updates performed.

currency exchange rate screenshot 10

Here’s an example of what your currency exchange rate updates page will look like.

currency exchange rate screenshot 11

And here is an example of the corresponding table of currencies you will generate.

currency exchange rate screenshot 12

Conclusion

I hope that this quick tutorial will help you run your business more efficiently by updating your currency exchange rates without the need for manual upload. This process is one simple step you can take to fully utilize the power of your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or NAV system. If you have any questions on this or any other topic, we're happy to help. Just fill out the Contact Us form and someone will get back to you.

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If you're ready to start emailing your customers better in Business Central, I recommend my piece on new email features in BC 17.1.

Kevin Fons

Kevin Fons

Kevin Fons is a Senior Application Consultant at Innovia Consulting with over 16 years of experience in all areas of NAV/ Business Central. He has over 30 years of experience in manufacturing, including in management and ERP-focused roles. Because of this background, Kevin has expertise in the areas of supply chain, manufacturing, warehousing, EDI, data/system setup, and business operations. At Innovia, Kevin has served as project lead for multiple NAV/BC projects and has consistently shown his ability to deliver results on time and on budget.

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