Paid in Three Currencies: How to Know What You Earned This Month

The short version

Clients pay you in dollars, your tools bill you in euros, your rent is in a third currency. In that situation "what did I earn this month?" has several answers, and they depend on which exchange rate you use and on what you call income: the money landing in your dollar account, or what is left after you convert it.

This setup gives one answer. Open an account per currency and record income in the currency it arrived in; the app converts it for you, at the rate of that day. Record currency exchange as a transfer between accounts. Taxes stay with your tax software, which the section "What this setup does not replace" covers.

Where the confusion starts

It usually starts in one of three places.

One spreadsheet, one "amount" column. That works while everything is in one currency. After the first foreign payment the column holds numbers in different units, and its total means nothing.

Converting everything at today's rate. $500 received in March and $500 received in September come to different amounts of your home currency. Re-converting your whole history at the current rate changes every past month retroactively, every day, so you can no longer compare one month with another.

Recording an exchange as spending. You sell $1,000, and your records now show "expense $1,000" and "income €920". Both numbers flow into your reports: monthly income doubles, spending grows, and yet you are no richer or poorer than before.

One account per currency, income in its own currency

In ExtMoney the currency belongs to the account. So start by creating accounts the way your money actually sits: a card in your home currency, cash, a dollar account, a euro account if you need one.

The free plan covers up to 5 accounts in 3 currencies, enough for a home currency plus dollars and euros. Plus raises that to 20 accounts and removes the currency limit.

From there, one rule: record income in the currency it arrived in, on the account it arrived at. A client sent $500, so it is $500 of income on the dollar account, with no mental arithmetic. Type it, say it ("received five hundred dollars from a client"), or put it on a schedule if it repeats.

To keep work money apart from personal money, give it categories of its own, for example "Client work", "Tools and subscriptions", "Fees". You can report on any of them, and groceries stay out of your business picture.

How the app turns it into one number

You pick a base currency in settings. Every total is shown in it: net worth, income and spending for the month, category reports. Transactions in other currencies are converted for you.

The rate for that conversion is the rate on the date of the transaction, not today's. Rates refresh several times a day and their history is kept. The $500 from March is converted at March's rate in the March report, and a year from now that report will still read the same. That is what makes months comparable.

Balances work differently. The money sitting in your dollar account is valued at the current rate, because that is what it is worth now. So your net worth in your base currency can move without a single transaction, when the rate moves. The books are still right: that is how any sum you hold in another currency behaves.

An exchange is a transfer, not an expense and an income

Selling currency is one transaction of type "transfer" between the two accounts. The form has two fields, the amount that left and the amount that arrived: how many dollars went out and how many euros came in. Those two numbers give your bank's real rate, with its spread and fees, and it is stored with the transaction.

A transfer counts as neither income nor spending, so reports only count money that was earned or spent, and income is not doubled. Balances match the bank: the dollar account went down by exactly what you sold, and the other account went up by exactly what the bank credited. Compare the transaction's rate with the market rate for that day and you can see what the exchange cost you.

A routine conversion can go on a schedule, say a fixed amount moved to your everyday card each month. The arriving amount in such a plan is not fixed in advance: it is calculated at the rate of the day the plan fires, because a rate frozen on the day you wrote the plan would be wrong by the second month.

Recurring income and recurring costs

Part of most freelance cash flow is predictable: a retainer from a long-term client, tool subscriptions in dollars, a coworking desk in your local currency. Those are worth setting up as recurring plans, each with an amount, a currency, an account and a schedule. They appear in your feed as planned items, you get a reminder, and the "safe to spend" figure on the dashboard already knows that rent leaves your card before the month ends.

Reality sometimes differs from the plan: the client paid more, a subscription got pricier. Then you save the planned item as an actual transaction with the real amount and date, and the plan itself stays as it was.

The free plan includes 5 recurring plans. Plus includes 30.

What this setup does not replace

It is not tax software. ExtMoney does not calculate tax, issue invoices or file anything. Your accountant or your tax software does that.

The converted figure is for managing your money, not for filing. The app converts at market rates as of the transaction date. Tax authorities usually prescribe their own source, often an official or central-bank rate on the day the income was received. The two are close but not equal. Use the official rate for anything you file, and use ExtMoney to see what you earned, what you can spend, and how the year is going.

The app does not connect to your bank. You enter transactions yourself, by typing, by voice or by snapping a receipt. For foreign-currency income that is no great burden: there are few such payments a month, and you see each one in your banking app the moment it lands.

Five steps to get started

1. Sign up and choose your base currency.
2. Create your accounts: everyday card, cash, one account per foreign currency. Enter current balances as the starting point.
3. Add categories for work money: "Client work", "Tools", "Fees".
4. Record this month's payments in the currency they arrived in. Record exchanges as transfers with both amounts.
5. Schedule what repeats: the retainer, the subscriptions, the rent.

A month from now you will see your income in your base currency: at the rates of the days it arrived, kept apart from personal spending, with nothing counted twice on the way through an exchange.

The free plan has no time limit, and three currencies are enough to try this on your own money: ExtMoney.

Published 22 September 2026