About Currency Conversion

The Essbase Currency Conversion feature enables you to translate financial data from one currency into another. Currency conversion facilitates comparisons among countries and enables consolidation of financial data from locations that use different currencies.

For example, consider an organization that analyzes profitability data from the UK, reported in pounds, and from Japan, reported in yen. Comparing local currency profitability figures would be meaningless. To understand the relative contribution of each country, you must convert pounds into yen, yen into pounds, or both into another currency.

As another example, reporting total profitability for North America requires standardization of the local currency values that constitute the North America total. Assuming that the U.S., Mexico, and Canada consolidate into Total North America, the profitability total is meaningless if data is kept in local currencies. The Total North America sum is meaningful only if local currencies are converted to a common currency before consolidation.

The Essbase installation includes the option to install the Sample currency application, which consists of two databases, Interntl and Xchgrate. If you do not have access to these databases, contact your Essbase administrator. See Setting Up Sample Applications.