Where Is My Money — Daily Assets, Cash Book, Currency Position

Where is my money? Every exchange dealer asks it several times a day, and three Nexto reports answer it — each from a different angle. This episode shows you what each one is for, so you stop opening the wrong page, and explains the one distinction that trips people up most: realised versus unrealised profit.

What you will learn

• Which of the three reports answers which version of the question
• How to read daily assets, row by row, currency by currency
• The difference between realised and unrealised profit
• How to use the cash book to find why the till does not balance
• What long and short mean in the currency position, and why short is printed in red
• How often to look at each report

Step by step

1. Know the three reports apart

Daily assets tells you what happened today in each currency. The cash book shows one particular till or bank, hour by hour. The currency position tells you which currencies you are long in and which you are short in. All three come from the same ledger built in /learn/core-concepts — they are three views of one truth, not three separate sets of books.

2. Read daily assets

One row per currency: yesterday's balance, how much you bought today and at what average, how much you sold and at what average, and what is left at the end. This table is your whole working day at a glance.

3. Take the last two columns seriously

Realised profit means the deal closed and the profit is in your pocket — the figure worked out with weighted average in /learn/buying-selling. Unrealised profit means the stock is still in your hands, and that figure moves with every tick of the rate. Confuse the two and you will think you made money when in fact the rate simply went up.

4. Open the cash book for one account and one day

Pick a treasury account — the till, a bank account, even the USDT wallet — and a day. At the top of the page you get four numbers: opening, in, out, closing. Underneath, every movement with its time and its document number.

5. Balance the till against the closing figure

At the end of the day you count the till and compare it against the closing figure here. If they do not agree, you look for the difference line by line, right here. The reconciliation button does the same job as on the statement — ticked lines move aside and the difference is left in plain sight.

6. Check the currency position weekly

For each currency it tells you how much stock you are holding, whether you are long or short, what average cost you got that stock at, what today's board rate is, and how much unrealised profit or loss the difference adds up to. The in-app page help (the ? icon at the top of the page) has more detail.

7. Fall back to the general ledger for the whole picture

If you want the same numbers from above, the general ledger shows customers, tills, banks, wallets, capital and expenses — each with its own total, currency by currency.

Tips

• Short means your stock in that currency is negative — you have sold what you do not have. In an exchange office this happens and it is not necessarily wrong, but know the risk: if that currency's rate rises, you lose. Nexto prints the label in red so it does not slip past you.
• Unrealised profit is not money. It moves with the rate and can disappear before you ever close the position.
• A simple rhythm: daily assets at the end of every day, the cash book whenever the till does not balance, and the currency position at least once a week.

FAQ

What is the difference between daily assets and the cash book?

Daily assets is organised by currency and covers the whole office for the day. The cash book is organised by one treasury account — a single till, bank or wallet — and shows every movement in it with times and document numbers.

Why is my currency position labelled short and shown in red?

Because your stock in that currency is negative: you have sold more than you hold. Nexto flags it in red so you notice the exposure, since a rise in that currency's rate becomes a loss for you.

The till does not match the closing figure. What now?

Open the cash book for that account and that day and go through the movements line by line. Use the reconciliation button to tick off the lines that agree, so only the difference is left in view.

How often should I look at the currency position?

At least once a week. It is the report that tells you which risk you are sitting on, and unlike the daily reports it will not shout at you when something drifts.