Neill wrote:
BTW, how can you say the applet uses the latest currency conversion rates?
Does the applet load the rates upon each use? From where?
Not meaning to dissuade you, but are you truly prepared for the
complexities you're about to face? If you're performing conversions
then you must appreciate that the rates change daily, if not more
frequently. What are you going to do about reporting in consistent
form? Even more challenging is when circumstances require you to
make a full or partial refund. How do you reconcile the fact that
the rates were different on the day the payment was made and the
refund or credit issued?
These are serious issues, BTW. You end up having to store the daily
rates in a persistent store so that you can go back to a specific
transaction and work from there.
Sounds trivial? Suppose you accepted a payment of CDN$500 on Jan.
1st of this year. Suppose further that you convert to US$ and the
rate for the date was 0.7729, yielding US$386.45. The product was
DOA and you've just received the product back at the warehouse.
But the conversion rate today is 0.7207. Do you use that rate? If
so then the customer will receive CDN$536.21.
The customer will probably be very happy. But what if the rate
changed in the other direction? Suppose the Canadian Dollar has
risen against the greenback and the rate today is 0.7965. Using
the daily rate will result in a refund of CDN$485.19. The customer
could get quite upset, rightfully claiming that they remitted the
full CDN$500, not CDN$485.19.
Now you can try to explain how currency conversion works until
you're blue in the face, but you're likely to end up with some
very unhappy customers.
Been there, done that, didn't even get the t-shirt! :-(