Running a US dollar account beside your local account
Whether a tour operator can keep a US dollar bank account in its Achekam books beside its rand, naira or shilling account, and the limits to plan around.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Travel businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
For an inbound tour operator, dollars are part of daily life. Overseas agents pay in dollars. Lodges, charter airlines and some ground handlers in the region quote and invoice in dollars. Holding a dollar account lets the operator receive agents' money and pay dollar suppliers without converting twice and paying the spread both ways.
Running that account is straightforward at the bank. Keeping it properly in the books takes a little more thought, because the books, the invoices and the dollar account do not all speak the same currency. This article sets out what Achekam does with a dollar account today, where the limits are, and what to agree with your accountant.
One currency per bank account
In Achekam, each bank account takes one currency. Set the dollar account up as its own bank account in US dollars, separate from your rand, naira or shilling account, with its own name, such as "USD operating account", so nobody confuses the two.
If you hold euros or pounds as well, each gets its own account in the same way. The rule is one account, one currency, both at the bank and in the books.
If you list your bank details on the pay page for transfers, the page can show the business's bank details and a payment reference, and a staff member marks the payment received once it shows on the bank statement. Make sure the details shown for each invoice match the currency the client will pay in.
Importing the dollar statement
Import the dollar account's statement each month like any other. Achekam takes PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053, and every import is checked so that the opening balance plus the movements equals the closing balance. Bank lines are then matched by suggestion and a person accepts each match. A line not yet in the books, such as a monthly account fee or a payment to a lodge, becomes a suggested journal a person approves. A reconciliation completes only with no difference left or with every leftover line explained. Reconcile the dollar account every month, even if it has few lines: an unreconciled foreign account is where errors hide longest.
Invoices stay in your own currency
At the time of writing, neither invoice form lets a business invoice in another currency. Even when an overseas agent pays you in dollars, your invoice to them is in rand, naira or shillings.
That creates the central practical question. The agent's dollars arrive in the dollar account; the invoice they settle is in local currency. Whoever records the receipt must turn the dollar amount into local currency at a rate, and the result will rarely match the invoice exactly. State on the invoice the dollar amount you expect and the rate used, so the agent pays the right dollars; invoicing a dollar-priced trip in local currency covers how to choose and state the rate.
Gateways that collect in dollars
Several gateways Achekam works with take dollars: Stripe Checkout takes ZAR, USD, EUR or GBP; Peach Payments takes ZAR, USD, EUR, KES or MUR; Paystack takes NGN, KES, GHS, ZAR or USD; Flutterwave takes ZAR, NGN, KES, GHS or USD.
But a pay link is for an issued invoice, and invoices are in your own currency. A gateway payment is checked against the amount the link asked for, and for a naira or shilling invoice, a gateway that does not settle the invoice's currency is refused. So when a traveller pays through a pay link, they pay the invoice's local amount, whatever their card's currency. Dollars reaching your dollar account will mostly come from direct transfers by agents rather than from pay links. How a gateway settles its payouts to you, and into which account, is between you and the gateway; matching gateway payouts and fees covers the books side.
Rand on ledger screens for Nigerian and Kenyan businesses
One more limit applies to Nigerian and Kenyan operators. At the time of writing, the ledger screens show every amount in rand, and the chart of accounts is stored in ZAR, even for a Nigerian or Kenyan business. The figures are your own; the currency label on those screens is not.
Add a dollar account to that and three currencies are in play: dollars at the bank, naira or shillings in reality, and rand on the label. Brief everyone who reads your ledger reports, and keep the bank's own dollar statements on file as the reference for what the account actually holds.
Exchange differences: agree the method with your accountant
A dollar account produces exchange differences: its local-currency value changes as the rate moves, even if no money moves at all. A receipt converted at one rate settles an invoice raised at another. A supplier paid in dollars from a balance bought at a different rate shows a gain or a loss.
Agree with your accountant before the account goes live:
- Which rate converts each dollar transaction, and from which source.
- How receipts are recorded against local-currency invoices, and where small differences go.
- How the account is revalued at each month end, and to which account gains and losses post.
- Who prepares and approves the revaluation journal.
The IFRS Foundation's summary of IAS 21 The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates explains how foreign currency transactions are accounted for. For how an overseas customer's payment works more generally, see billing overseas customers.
Opening the account in the books
Set up the dollar account in Achekam in US dollars, import its first statement, and reconcile it. Then write the four answers above on one page with your accountant, and apply them from the first dollar receipt.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
