Sage 50 import error: "The company does not use multi-currency
Your Sage 50 company was set up without multi-currency, so every imported transaction must be in your home currency.
The message, in full, is “Error: The company does not use multi-currency so you cannot import foreign currency transactions.” Sage 50 is not rejecting your transactions themselves. It is telling you that the company file you are importing into was set up without multi-currency, so the file recognizes exactly one currency, your home currency. Somewhere in the import data at least one transaction carries a different currency, and the import halts before any of it is brought in.
Check the import file before touching anything
The safest fix is often no fix at all. A common cause is a currency column in the import file that does not match the home currency, or an import template reused from another company that fills that column in automatically. If the amounts are genuinely in your home currency, correcting or clearing that column lets the import proceed with no change to the company file. Rule this out first.
Import home-currency equivalents
If the transactions really are in a foreign currency, you can convert each amount to your home currency before importing, applying the exchange rate you would record anyway. Every amount is then in the one currency the file understands, and the import goes through. The trade-off is real: you lose per-currency balances, rate history, and exchange gain or loss tracking. For a few one-off transactions that may be acceptable; for ongoing foreign-currency business it usually is not.
Enable multi-currency, if your file permits it
Whether multi-currency can be switched on in an existing company depends on the edition, the release, and how the company was first created; in many Sage 50 setups the choice is made when the company is built and cannot be added afterwards. We cannot tell you which applies to your file without looking at it. Where it can be enabled, existing records remain in home currency and new transactions can use foreign currencies going forward.
Move the data into a multi-currency company
When the setting cannot be turned on, the practical route is a new company created with multi-currency enabled, then migrating your lists, open balances, and history into it. Re-entering all of that by hand is slow and error-prone, and re-importing the same foreign-currency transactions into the new file is exactly the kind of migration our engineers handle as a data conversion service.
If the message appeared during a conversion
The same error surfaces when data is moving from another accounting system into Sage 50, for example from a QuickBooks company with multicurrency turned on. The fix sits on one side or the other: the Sage 50 company needs multi-currency enabled before the import, or the source data needs every amount expressed in home currency. For QuickBooks sources, removing multi-currency from the source file first is one established route.
Next step
Send us the company file and the import file that triggered the message. We will identify which of the cases above you are in, tell you whether your file can take multi-currency at all, and quote the work for free. Cost and timing depend on the file, so we quote per file rather than publishing fixed rates.