Can I issue an invoice in English only?

It depends on the system and on the requirements applying to your business. The common solution is a customer document in English alongside a Hebrew record for bookkeeping - a combination some Israeli systems present explicitly. The question of what is required belongs with your accountant.

Which rate is used for recording?

The two accepted approaches are the rate on the document date or the actual rate at which the money converted. Both need consistency and records, and choosing between them is a conversation with your accountant - not a technical decision made while issuing the first document.

The customer paid a different amount from the invoice. Why?

Almost always because of rate and conversion: the customer was charged in their currency, their card company converted at its own rate, and your side recorded the amount after another conversion. This is normal, and worth explaining to foreign customers in advance to prevent an enquiry.

Do I need a special system for foreign currency?

Not special, but one that genuinely supports it: issuing in the currency, storing the rate, and keeping a Hebrew record. That is one of the things to test in a trial rather than assume, and one of the points separating Israeli systems - as covered in [Morning versus EZcount](/blog/morning-vs-ezcount-for-business).

Foreign Currency Invoices in Israel: What Goes on the Document

A document in a foreign currency needs the currency, the rate and the date, plus a Hebrew record for bookkeeping. What to check and how to handle credits.

A document in a foreign currency is the same document with three extra questions: which currency the amount is in, at what rate and on what date it translates to shekels, and how it is stored so your accountant can work with it. This article is about the document itself; the collection and conversion side is covered in collecting in foreign currency from Israel.

This is an operational description, not advice. Choosing a rate and how to record it is a question for your accountant and the Tax Authority pages.

What belongs on a foreign-currency document?

Item	Why
The currency code	"$" is ambiguous; USD is not
The amount in the original currency	That is what the customer pays
The shekel amount, where shown	For the books
The rate and the date	Without them the translation cannot be explained
Full business details	As on any document
A clear description of what was sold	Especially important to a foreign customer with no context

The fourth row is the forgotten one, and it is exactly what allows FX differences to be explained at year end without reconstructing every transaction.

English and Hebrew: how it works

The foreign customer needs a document they understand; bookkeeping needs a Hebrew record. Israeli systems solve this in different ways, and EZcount for instance explicitly presents creating documents in English with automatic Hebrew saving for bookkeeping.

What to check in your system:

Whether the English document is the same document or a separate one - and how it is numbered.
Whether the shekel amount is retained in the record even when the customer sees only dollars.
Whether reports show both amounts.
Whether you can send in English and file in Hebrew without doing it twice.

Credits in foreign currency: the extra question

Crediting a foreign-currency document raises a question with no single technical answer: do you return the same amount in the original currency, or the amount actually received in shekels? Both approaches exist, and the gap between them grows as time passes and the rate moves.

What matters:

Decide in advance and write it into the returns policy.
Show it to the customer before the transaction, not after.
Record on the credit itself which rate it was calculated at.
Be consistent - two similar transactions handled differently are a source of complaints.

What changes in the reports

A business selling in foreign currency gets a line it did not have before: FX differences. They are not an error but the result of the document, the charge, the conversion and the deposit happening on different days. To keep the report readable:

Store the original amount, the rate and the shekel amount on every document.
Show FX transactions separately in the monthly report.
Do not try to match line against line between document and bank - the gap is expected.

The practical reconciliation method is described in reconciling card settlements without an ERP.

What to do before the first foreign customer

Check the system can issue in the relevant currency.
Issue a test document and see what actually appears on it.
Confirm the Hebrew record is retained.
Ask your accountant which rate to record at, and configure it once.
Write the foreign-currency returns policy.
Test what a credit looks like, on a small amount.

Step four is the only non-technical one, and it decides all the rest. A ten-minute conversation with your accountant before the first transaction saves corrections at year end.

One test before you start

The quick way to know whether your system is ready: issue a test document in a foreign currency, open it as the customer would see it, and ask three questions - is the currency unambiguous; does the rate and date appear if shekels are shown; and would somebody unfamiliar with the transaction understand what was sold. If any answer is no, that is the moment to fix it - before there is a real customer on the other side.

What differs between a product and a service

A physical product sold abroad comes with supporting documents - shipping, delivery, sometimes export paperwork - and a service does not. The practical implication: for a service, the only document evidencing what was sold is the invoice itself, which makes its description far more important. "Consulting services" is not a description; "technical consulting, 12 hours, September 2026" is. That difference surfaces when somebody - a customer, an accountant or a reviewer - tries to understand what actually happened.

What to explain to a foreign customer in advance

Three lines in the quote or the order prevent most enquiries: which currency they are charged in; that the amount appearing on their statement may differ slightly because of their card company's conversion rate; and what the policy is if they ask for a refund. A foreign customer has no Israeli context, so they assume the amount they see is exactly what will be charged - and when it is not, they get in touch.

How to file these properly

A foreign-currency document should be stored so it can be found two ways: by customer, and by period. That sounds trivial until you need to pull every transaction in a given currency at year end - which is exactly what your accountant will ask for. Check during a trial that the report exists, and that it shows the original amount, the rate and the shekel amount on the same line.

How this interacts with allocation numbers

A foreign-currency transaction raises an extra question around allocation numbers: the threshold is denominated in shekels while the transaction is in another currency. That means the system has to translate before deciding whether to request a number, and it is exactly the point to see demonstrated rather than assumed. Ask the vendor how the system calculates it, and what happens on a transaction sitting close to the threshold - these questions are covered in what Israeli invoicing software must have.

Foreign Currency Invoices in Israel: What Goes on the Document

Key takeaways