FW Real Estate – Documentation

The FWRE Multi Currency plugin enables multi-currency price display on your property portal. Prices are entered and stored in a single base currency; visitors can switch to any published display currency using a selector on the listing and detail pages. Exchange rates are applied automatically at the time of display.

How It Works

All prices you enter on property records are stored in the admin (backend) currency. When a visitor views the site, prices are converted to their selected currency using the stored exchange rates. The visitor's choice is saved in their session and persists while they browse the site.

When this plugin is active, the standard single-currency fields in Settings → General → Localization are replaced by the multi-currency selectors described below.

Localization Settings

Two currency settings are added to FW Real Estate → Settings → General → Localization:

• Admin (backend) currency — the currency used when entering prices on property records. All stored price values are held in this currency.
• Frontend default currency — the currency shown to visitors by default when they first open the site.

A third setting is added to Settings → Properties:

• Show currency selector — set to Yes to display a dropdown on listing and detail pages, allowing visitors to switch between available currencies.

Managing Currencies

Currencies are configured in FW Real Estate → Dictionaries → Currencies. Each currency record has the following fields:

• Name — the label shown in the selector (e.g. "US Dollar").
• 3-letter currency code — the ISO 4217 code (e.g. USD, EUR, GBP). Required for automatic rate updates.
• Currency sign — the symbol displayed with prices (e.g. $, €, £).
• Currency sign position — before or after the amount.
• Exchange/Cross rate — the rate relative to the base currency. The base currency itself is set to 1. Updated automatically or manually.
• Currency update — Automatic fetches the rate from the European Central Bank (ecb.europa.eu) once per day on the first site visit. Manual uses the rate entered by the admin.
• Published — controls whether the currency appears in the frontend selector.

Automatic Exchange Rates

Currencies with Currency update set to Automatic retrieve their rates from the European Central Bank XML feed. Rates refresh once per day on the first page visit. If your base currency is not Euro, rates are cross-calculated — for example, if the base is USD, the GBP rate is derived from both the USD and GBP ECB rates. Currencies set to Manual retain whatever rate you enter until you update it yourself.

Frontend Currency Selector

When Show currency selector is enabled, a dropdown appears on listing and property detail pages. Visitors select their preferred currency and prices update accordingly for their entire session.

Important Notes

• The admin currency determines how stored prices are interpreted. If you change the admin currency after prices have been entered, existing prices will be read as if they were always in the new currency — there is no automatic conversion of historical data.
• If the plugin is disabled, currency configuration reverts to the simple single-currency fields in Settings → General → Localization.

To install this addon, open the Add-ons panel inside FW Real Estate. See Getting Started → Add-ons for details on free addons, paid addons, and site verification.