Depending on the work to which we dedicate ourselves, or simply for entertainment, there are several advantages that we can obtain to opt for making use of this function. If we usually deal with money, for whatever reason, or we simply travel a lot to other countries, this information can be of great value to us. In addition, we must bear in mind that we benefit from all this in a free program such as Google Sheets, we only need an email account.
And that’s not all, since as many of you already know, this is an application that works in the cloud. With this, what we really want to tell you is that, once the currency conversion function is implemented, we can always carry it with us. Just go to this Sheets spreadsheetFor example, from the mobile, to have this data updated and up-to-date, at all times. In addition, we only have to do it the first time, then everything is saved to be able to use the functionality in the future directly.
Currency conversion with Google Finance from Sheets
The GOOGLEFINANCE formula that we apply to get current values is defined in =GOOGLEFINANCE(“Currency:USDGBP”). The values entered in the “USD-GBP” example can be modified by the identification codes of other currencies.
To find out these codes, we access the page of the body that regulates it, which is Once we know these codes, or have the source of information from where to obtain them, we can create our conversion table.
As we can see in the example above, the conversion rate from “USD” to “EUR” is 0.89703. This could change every 20 minutes as it will show us the most recent value at that time. These values can be modified by any other, as we mentioned before and on the XE page. Also, do not confuse the conversion of “USD” to “EUR” with “EUR to “USD”, since it will give us a totally different value. It can be a common mistake to confuse this if we think about it lightly.
Here is an example of a conversion rate table in Google Sheets. As I mentioned before, we can enter any currency and obtain said rate, for this we will choose a column and row, and we will introduce the value: =GOOGLEFINANCE(“Currency:EURGBP”), changing it for the one of the currency that we want.
Convert an amount of money to a different currency
To convert “X” amount of money to a currency different from ours, we can do it with the same function and linking the cells. This can be somewhat more complicated to understand for less experienced users who have not used this tool or another similar one.
With the following example we will be able to perfectly understand how to carry out said conversion and of any currency instantly.
- As we see in the table, first we will have to execute the function =GOOGLEFINANCE(«Currency:EURUSD»), which is the one that is working in cells A3 and A4.
- When we obtain the rate, it must be multiplied by the amount in “EUR” with the function =A4*B4 (We introduce it in C4).
- Once we execute the previous step, we will obtain the value in “USD” of the amount in euros that we have entered.
In the same way we can do it with any currency and any value that we introduce in the table. In this way we can organize a whole list of conversions which will be updated automatically. This is widely used among investors, who can keep track and accounting of their investments and the income they will obtain after said conversion, for which Google Sheets will be useful.
Is it reliable and accurate?
Converting currencies from one value to another is very simple. We can do it very easily with a Google Sheet, or, if we want, use one of the options that we are going to see below. However, to what extent is it accurate and will we pay the value that the program tells us?
There are many factors that can change the price of a product when paying in other currencies. Although the conversion is accurate (since XE always has updated currency values), when we go to make a payment, many aspects influence it. The first of these is rounding. Payment platforms usually round up so that, once the payment is made, they keep the difference in commission mode. They can also apply additional commissions when paying in currencies that are not ours, and even impose their own conversion values (higher, obviously) for rounding. Also, in addition to the payment platform, it is possible that our bank charges us another commission when paying with a currency different from ours.
For these reasons, and others that may appear, it is likely that the value we get in our Google Docs sheet, in XE, or in Google itself, is different from the price we ultimately pay. In addition, several factors influence here, such as the data source we use, or the time it takes us to carry out the actual currency conversion ourselves. With everything and with this, the data that we are going to obtain here is usually quite reliable in general terms and more so if what we want is to obtain an approximate value for the change.
Websites to convert currencies
Being able to make an accounting sheet with this trick is very interesting, and it can surely save us a lot of time. However, in many situations it is neither the best nor the most comfortable. Perhaps what we want is to know how many euros is a certain amount of dollars and, although we can also do it like this, it is better to opt for other faster alternatives.
Google itself, for example, allows us to switch from one currency to another instantly. We simply have to make a query similar to “X euros to dollars” in the search engine and we will automatically see the conversion. The conversion will be made with the last official exchange rate at that time if the foreign exchange market is open or the last price marked by the market before closing.
XE
And we can also carry out conversions from specialized web pages, such as, for example, from . This website is updated in real time so that we will always be able to obtain the real value of money from the conversion. With this website, we can also access a history of the evolution of the change over time, establish change alerts and share the values directly through links.
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Another alternative, especially for those who like to know the evolution of the value of currencies, is . This website also has a large database of currencies and allows us to go from one to another very quickly, showing a graph with the evolution of the value.
In addition, these web applications that we have just told you about offer us the advantage that they are constantly updated directly. This means that, if we do the calculation or currency conversion of a certain currency today, if we repeat the same process tomorrow, it is possible that the values obtained have nothing to do with it. This allows us to be updated at all times on this data that we are commenting on.
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