Revolut, Wise and multi-currency statements: a bookkeeper's guide

Revolut Business and Wise have made multi-currency accounts ordinary. A freelancer invoices in dollars, holds them, pays a European supplier in euros, and draws the rest in sterling — and does it from one app with no bank in the old sense involved. The bookkeeping hasn't caught up with the convenience. The same account produces a statement per currency, an exchange shows up as two transactions, and the most common mistake turns a routine conversion into income that never existed. Here's how to handle it.

One balance, one bank account in the books

The first decision settles most of the others. Each currency balance is a separate ledger account in your books, denominated in that currency: "Revolut GBP", "Revolut USD", "Wise EUR". Not one account with mixed currencies, and not one account in your reporting currency with everything converted on the way in.

This matches what the provider gives you. Revolut and Wise both issue a statement per currency balance, each with its own opening and closing balance in that currency — which means each one can be converted and verified on its own terms. NoRekey reads the statement's currency and checks the conversion against its declared balances in that currency; the details are in how currencies are handled, and Revolut and Wise statements convert like any other.

In accounting software this needs multi-currency switched on. In Xero and QuickBooks Online that's a higher plan tier, and in QuickBooks it's a one-way setting. If you're on a spreadsheet, it's a tab per currency with the amounts in that currency, and a reporting-currency column computed from the rate.

An exchange is two legs and a fee

Convert £1,000 to dollars and the statements show a debit of £1,000 on the GBP balance and a credit of, say, $1,264.80 on the USD balance — sometimes with a fee as a third line, sometimes with the fee embedded in the rate. Neither leg is an expense and neither is income. Together they're a transfer between two of your own accounts at a known rate, and the books record exactly that: GBP account down £1,000, USD account up $1,264.80, any explicit fee to bank charges.

The trap is booking the legs separately as they arrive: the £1,000 out as some expense, the $1,264.80 in as a receipt. Do that once a month for a year and the accounts show £12,000 of mystery spending and $15,000 of phantom sales. Tag every exchange leg as a transfer when you categorise the converted rows; the provider's description ("Exchanged to USD", "Converted GBP → USD") makes them easy to find.

Which rate, when

Three rates matter, and they're used for different things.

The rate on the statement, for the conversion itself. The provider executed the exchange at a specific rate; that rate is the truth of that transaction, and the two legs should be recorded at the amounts on the statements. Don't re-rate an exchange with an average.

A transaction-date rate, for foreign-currency income and expenses. A $2,000 invoice paid into the USD balance is $2,000 of sales; for the profit and loss in sterling it needs a rate for that day. Accounting software applies one automatically; on a spreadsheet, HMRC's published monthly rates are acceptable for UK tax purposes and save you looking up a daily figure.

A period-end rate, for what the foreign balances are worth on the balance sheet date. The difference between that and the historical cost of the balance is an unrealised exchange gain or loss. Whether and how that's taxed is an accountant's question; the bookkeeping just needs the balance and the rate.

Realised gains and losses arise from the first two: you recorded $2,000 of sales at one rate and converted the dollars later at another. The software computes the difference when the transfer is recorded; on a spreadsheet it's the gap between the sterling value of the dollars when they arrived and the sterling you actually received.

The traps, briefly

Card payments in a currency you don't hold. Pay in Swiss francs with no CHF balance and the provider converts on the spot — the statement shows the sterling (or euro) debit with the CHF amount in the description. That's an expense at the statement amount; no second leg.

Weekend and out-of-hours rates. Revolut applies a markup to exchanges outside market hours. It's embedded in the rate, not a separate fee — which is fine for the books, and worth knowing if you're comparing the rate to the mid-market figure.

Pending transactions. The app shows them; the statement doesn't until they settle. The statement is the record.

Fees on the receiving side. Wise sometimes takes its fee from the incoming amount; the statement shows the gross receipt and the fee as separate lines, or the net only, depending on the transfer type. Book what the statement shows.

Balance top-ups from your main bank. A transfer from Barclays to Revolut GBP is a transfer, same as an exchange — it appears on both statements and is booked once.

The monthly routine

1. Download every currency balance's statement for the month — one each.
2. Convert them; check each shows balanced in its own currency.
3. Import each into its own ledger account, or paste into its own tab.
4. Tag exchange legs and top-ups as transfers. Tag foreign-currency income and expenses to their categories; the software (or your rate column) handles the sterling value.
5. Reconcile each balance to its statement's closing figure — in its currency, not the converted one.

Multi-currency bookkeeping has a reputation it doesn't deserve. The complexity is real but it's all in the exchange legs and the rates; get those two things right and a five-currency account is five ordinary bank accounts that happen to share an app.