As you already know, the euro is a new currency from 1 January 1999. At this time, the currencies of the eleven "in" countries become fixed to the euro. These notes will help you decide how to use ABP with the euro. The notes are split into two parts: bank account management and investment activity. While reading this document, it will be helpful if you remember that ABP stores all transactions in your home currency, even if they were entered in a foreign currency.

The first step is to create the euro as a new (foreign) currency in your ABP data file as follows:

1) Run ABP

2) Using the Add Currency function, add the euro as a new currency

3) Ensure that the exchange rates for all other currencies are updated as necessary

You have two options to use the euro with ABP. The first option is to use the euro as a foreign currency. The second option is to use the euro as your new home currency - this will require all your bank account data to be converted.

 Option 1: The euro as a foreign currency. Once you have added the euro as a new currency, you can treat the euro as you would any other foreign currency. You can enter transactions in euro, and ABP will automatically convert them into your home currency as it would, for example, if you entered a foreign currency transaction in US Dollars.

 Option 2: The euro as your home currency. You may wish to change your home currency from (say) Deutschemarks to the euro. In this case, all your account balances, category balances, standing orders, transactions and splits will be converted to the euro. Any "legacy" currency (for example French Francs) will be treated by ABP as a foreign currency. A transaction which you enter in French Francs will be stored by ABP in euro.

In this case, ABP may need to modify your investment holdings, your investment prices and your investment activity. Since all European stocks for the "in" countries are quoted in the euro after 1 January 1999, the prices of these stocks will be adjusted. For bonds, the price will stay the same (since it is a percentage) but the positions (holdings) may change.

Before using the program, you must have added the euro as a new currency in ABP and modified any exchange rates. After reading the information above, you should decide how you want to use ABP with the euro.

You only need to run the euro conversion program if any of the the statements below are true:

1. You want to make the euro your home currency

2. You want to convert an existing bank account to the euro

3. You have some investments which will be priced in euro

If none of the above are true, you do NOT need to run the program.

The program can be run from any directory on the Psion Series 5. Note that the program will insist that you set up a new data file for your converted data.

The program will ask whether you want to set the euro to be your new home currency. If you answer yes then all account balances, category balances, transactions, splits and standing orders will be converted.

For each account, the program will ask whether you want the euro to be the currency of that account. Using currency DEM (for Deutschemarks) as an example, you have the following options:

a) Home currency DEM, Bank account currency DEM

b) Home currency DEM, Bank account currency EUR

c) Home currency EUR, Bank account currency DEM

d) Home currency EUR, Bank account currency EUR

For each investment that you hold, the program will ask whether you want to convert the currency, the price and the position. The program will suggest the options that it thinks are correct, but you can override them as necessary.

I say again:

 Download the euro conversion program from here: abpeuro.zip

Malcolm Bryant

29 November 1998