How money works

A money value is an exact decimal amount interpreted in one ISO currency. It is never handled as a floating-point number.

The money model

Currency belongs to the column, not to each row. A money column is defined once with:

Column setting	Meaning
Currency	One canonical uppercase ISO-4217 code, such as EUR, USD, or JPY
Rounding	Preserve all precision, or round half-up to the currency’s normal decimal places

Rows then contain only the decimal amount. For example, every value in a total_usd column declared as USD is USD; callers do not send a currency with each value.

One table may contain several money columns with different currencies. A table’s money currencies are also independent of the profile’s accounting currency.

A money column does not exchange currency

Saving 100 in a USD column stores USD 100, even when the profile keeps its books in EUR. Currency conversion happens only when an accounting workflow explicitly posts that amount to the ledger.

From input to stored value

1. The caller sends the amount as a decimal string.
2. The server parses it directly as base-10 decimal.
3. The column’s rounding rule is applied.
4. The result is stored as an exact decimal number.
5. Reads return the amount as a decimal string; the currency comes from the column definition.

This avoids a hidden conversion through binary floating point.

Accepted	Rejected
1200	1,200
1200.50	1_200.50
-0.01	+0.01
0.0001	1e-4
0	values with surrounding spaces

Money columns are optional unless a particular managed workflow makes them required. A generic money column may contain zero or a negative amount; business workflows such as journal posting can impose stricter rules.

Rounding

Half-up columns round on insert and update. Other columns do not.

No rounding

The written precision is preserved within the server’s exact-decimal range. A USD column can therefore store 12.345678 even though USD normally has two decimal places.

Half-up

The amount is rounded to the number of decimal places defined by its ISO currency. A tie rounds away from zero.

Currency	Input	Stored
EUR — 2 decimals	12.345	12.35
EUR — 2 decimals	-12.345	-12.35
JPY — 0 decimals	12.5	13
KWD — 3 decimals	12.3455	12.346

Arithmetic itself does not automatically round. Intermediate results retain their available decimal precision until a value is written to a column with a rounding rule.

Arithmetic and comparison

Money operations preserve currency:

• money can be added to, subtracted from, or compared with money in the same currency;
• money can be multiplied or divided by an ordinary decimal scalar;
• absolute value preserves the currency;
• division by zero and results outside the exact-decimal range are refused.

EUR 10 + EUR 2.50 is EUR 12.50. EUR 10 + USD 10 is invalid. The server never treats equal-looking amounts in different currencies as interchangeable and never performs an implicit exchange.

Money in scripts and aggregates

Scripts receive money as a currency-aware value rather than a plain decimal. They must use explicit money operations, and every branch that returns money must return the same currency.

A script writing into a money column must produce that column’s currency. The destination column then applies its rounding rule. Related sums, minimums, and maximums keep the source column’s currency; an empty money sum is zero in that currency.

Money and accounting

A profile has one accounting currency, while its ordinary tables may contain money in any supported currency.

When a journal line already matches the accounting currency, its amount is posted directly. When it differs and the profile’s accounting currency is EUR, the accounting workflow converts it using the explicitly selected ECB or custom-rate path. Foreign-currency posting to a non-EUR accounting profile is refused. The journal stores the rounded accounting amount while retaining the original amount, original currency, and conversion evidence.

See ECB conversion by example for rate-date and exchange-rate selection.

Example

Suppose a EUR-accounting profile has an invoice table with these columns:

Column	Currency	Rounding	Written	Stored
net	EUR	Half-up	19.995	20.00
foreign_total	USD	None	24.994	24.994

Saving the invoice performs no exchange. If foreign_total is later posted to the EUR ledger, that posting selects a USD/EUR rate, converts the amount, rounds the ledger value, and records the original USD amount with its conversion evidence.

When money is refused

• The currency is lowercase, padded with spaces, or not a recognized ISO-4217 code.
• The amount is not a canonical decimal string.
• Arithmetic or comparison mixes currencies.
• A script returns money in a currency different from its destination column.
• Division uses zero, or an operation exceeds the exact-decimal range.

These failures never trigger approximate arithmetic, silent currency conversion, or automatic truncation.