Migrate to a foreign currency bank account in FreeAgent

If you’ve been using a separate FreeAgent bank account in your base currency* to record your foreign currency bank transactions, you should migrate the balance to a new foreign currency bank account in FreeAgent by following these simple steps.

1. Create a new foreign currency bank account in FreeAgent

Navigate to the 'Banking' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Bank Accounts' from the drop-down menu.

Bank Accounts highlighted within the bank accounts drop-down menu

From the Bank Accounts Summary page, select ‘Add new account’ and then ‘Bank Account’ from the drop-down menu.

Bank Account Summary page with Bank Account highlighted from the Add new account drop-down menu

Enter a name for the bank account and select the foreign currency from the 'Currency' drop-down menu.

Currency drop-down menu highlighted

Set the opening balance of the bank account to zero.

2. Add transaction a manual transaction from your existing account

Navigate to the bank account that you’ve been using to record your foreign bank transactions until now, then select ‘Add transaction’ from the 'More' drop-down menu.

Bank account screen with Add transaction highlighted from the More drop-down menu

Select ‘Transfer to Another Account’ from the 'Type' drop-down menu and enter the balance of the account you’re transferring the money from (i.e. the account you’ve been using until now to record your foreign currency bank transactions) in the ‘Value’ field. FreeAgent the converts this figure into the currency of your new foreign currency bank account using the latest exchange rate from xe.com.

Manual bank transaction being entered as a transfer to another account

Select ‘Create and Finish’ at the bottom of the screen to complete the process.

Once you’ve made the transfer, the balance of the base currency account that you transferred the money out of will go down to zero. If you wish, you can hide this account.

*If you have a UK FreeAgent account, your base currency will be GBP, if you have a US account, it will be US dollars, and if you have a Universal account, it will be the currency you selected when you first set up your FreeAgent account.

Did you find this article useful?