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Every Fluid order stores its totals twice. Once in the currency the shopper paid in, and once in US dollars, Fluid’s base currency, in the fields that end in _in_base. To report revenue across countries and currencies, add up amount_in_base. Every order’s amount_in_base is in US dollars, so the sum is too.

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The two sets of amounts

The base currency is Fluid’s, not the company’s. A company that sells only in euros still gets its _in_base amounts in US dollars.

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How an order is converted

When an order is created, Fluid records the exchange rate between US dollars and the order’s currency in base_to_currency_rate: how many units of the order’s currency make one US dollar. Each base amount is the order amount divided by that rate, rounded to the cent. For example, a German shopper pays €92.00 when the euro rate is 0.92:
The rate is set once, when the order is created, and never changes. So an order’s amount_in_base stays the same as exchange rates move, and last quarter’s revenue reads the same today as it did then.

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Report revenue across currencies

  • Sum amount_in_base, not amount. Adding amount across orders mixes currencies, so €92 and ¥15,000 add up to a meaningless 15,092.
  • Don’t convert with today’s rate. Use the base amounts the order already has. They were converted at the rate in effect when each order was placed.
  • To show a total in another currency, convert the US dollar sum once, at the end. Fluid’s own analytics work this way. They add up the orders’ amount_in_base, then convert.
  • Orders in the same currency can be added directly. When every order you’re adding has the same currency_code, their amount values add up correctly in that currency.
Amounts in API responses can be decimal strings. Parse them with a decimal type, not a floating-point number, before you add them.

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Edited orders

The base amounts describe the order as it was placed. An order edited after checkout keeps its original amount_in_base. Its new total is current_amount, in the order’s own currency, and has no US dollar field. To report an edited order’s new total in US dollars, divide current_amount by the order’s base_to_currency_rate, the same rate its base amounts used. Don’t use a current exchange rate.

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Where you’ll find these fields

The order responses in the API reference carry currency_code, amount_in_base, and, on most of them, base_to_currency_rate: Each page lists the exact fields that operation returns.
Some generated reference pages describe amount_in_base as being in “the company’s base currency”. It’s in Fluid’s base currency, US dollars, for every company.