Travel Kitty in Multiple Currencies: How Kithora Converts Expenses

Two weeks on the road, three countries, three currencies. Dinner is paid in euros, the ferry in pounds, the berth in the harbour in kronor, and at some point someone in the group chat asks how much all of it adds up to. Usually one person ends up with a calculator and an exchange rate they looked up somewhere.

The travel kitty in Kithora makes this easier. Every Kora has one shared base currency, you record expenses in the currency you actually paid in, and the app does the conversion. This post explains how that works, how you set exchange rates or let them update automatically, and how currencies fit together with the rest of the app.

The base currency: one currency for the whole Kora

A Kora always calculates in one shared currency, the base currency. The financial overview, the debts between members and the settlement amounts all come together in it. That way you can see at a glance who owes whom how much, no matter which currencies were used along the way.

Recording expenses in a foreign currency

You add further currencies in the Kora’s currency settings. After that, you record an expense in the currency it was actually paid in. For the shared overview, Kithora converts the amount into the base currency.

Nothing gets lost along the way: for every foreign-currency expense you can see the original amount and currency, the rate that was used and the value in the base currency. Expenses that are already saved also keep their original rate. If the exchange rate changes later, old entries are not changed retroactively, so yesterday’s settlement stays stable.

Exchange rates: manual or automatic

For each additional currency you decide separately how the rate is set. It is always shown in the form “1 unit of the base currency = X units of the foreign currency”, for example 1 USD = 0.89065 EUR.

Manual: you set the rate

You enter the rate yourself. That is handy if you exchanged cash at a specific rate or if the group wants to agree on a fixed value.

Automatic: Kithora updates the rate

With the switch next to a currency you turn on automatic updates, and you do so for each currency separately. Here is how it works:

• It fetches current rates from an exchange rate service.
• The rate is fetched at most once per local calendar day.
• This only happens while the app is active and connected to the internet.
• On weekends, the last available rate from a trading day may apply.
• If no new rate is available, the saved one stays in place.
• It does not overwrite manually set rates as long as you have not switched automatic updates on for that currency.

Because Kithora also works without an internet connection, you can record expenses on the road at any time. If there is no signal, the last saved rate applies, and as soon as the app is back online it can update it.

Settlement payments in different currencies

Kithora calculates automatically who owes whom how much and shows it in the base currency. The settlement itself is not always paid in that currency, though: one person may only have euros on hand, while another would rather transfer in dollars.

That is why you can record each settlement payment in a currency of your choice, either the base currency or one of the additional currencies you have set up. Different settlement payments may also be recorded in different currencies. For every payment, Kithora shows the value in the base currency so that the shared accounts stay easy to follow.

An example from practice

A travel group has chosen US dollars as its base currency and pays in euros along the way. Euro is set up as an additional currency, automatic updates are on, and the rate stands at 1 USD = 0.89065 EUR. Everyone records their expenses in euros, yet the overview still shows everything in US dollars.

At the end, a member settles up 825.90 euros and records the payment directly in euros. Kithora shows the equivalent in the base currency, here around 927.30 US dollars. For your group the base currency could just as well be euros, pounds or kronor.

How it works together with the other modules

Currency conversion is part of the finances, but on a trip everything is connected:

• Itinerary: for each stage you save the date, place and, if you like, the costs. Expenses for upcoming dates can be entered in advance and count in the overviews from their date onward.
• Shopping list: provisions, sun cream or charcoal go on a list the whole group shares, and entries can be linked to a stage. What the shopping cost, you enter afterwards as an expense, in the currency you paid in.
• Receipts and splitting: you photograph receipts, the app recognises the items automatically, and tips, service charges and taxes can be split as well. You split each expense equally, by percentage, among selected members or with individual shares. For the shared dinner, Live Split from Premium helps.
• Sub-groups: with several cars or boats you settle up per group. More on that in the article “Sub-Groups in Kithora: One Flotilla, Three Boats, One Kora”.
• Chronicle and Journal: the Chronicle is where the group collects photos and posts, and the Journal shows who recorded or changed which expense and when.
• Export: at the end you export expenses as PDF or CSV if you want to keep the settlement or move it into a spreadsheet.

And as everywhere in Kithora: nobody needs an account, and your data stays end-to-end encrypted.

How to set up currencies

1. When creating the Kora, choose the base currency, for example with the Travel group template.
2. In the currency settings, add the foreign currencies you will need on the road.
3. For each currency, decide whether the rate stays manual or is updated automatically with the switch.
4. Record expenses in the currency you paid in and split them among the people involved.
5. In the financial overview, check debts and settlement amounts and record settlement payments in the right currency.

Your trip at a glance

How to set up a trip as a whole is covered in the article “Group Trip Planner: Itinerary, Travel Kitty and Crew in One App”.