Introduction to Money

Money implements a set of functions to store, retrieve and perform arithmetic on a %Money{} type that is composed of a currency code and a currency amount.

Money is opinionated in the interests of serving as a dependable library that can underpin accounting and financial applications. In its initial release it can be expected that this contract may not be fully met.

How is this opinion expressed?

Money must always have both a amount and a currency code.
The currency code must always be a valid ISO4217 code.
Money arithmetic can only be performed when both operands are of the same currency.
Money amounts are represented as a Decimal.
Money can be serialised to the database as a composite Postgres type that includes both the amount and the currency. Therefore for Ecto serialization Postgres is assumed as the data store. Serialization is entirely optional.
All arithmetic functions work on a Decimal. No rounding occurs automatically (unless expressly called out for a function, as is the case for Money.split/2).
Explicit rounding obeys the rounding rules for a given currency. The rounding rules are defined by the Unicode consortium in its CLDR repository as implemented by the hex package ex_cldr. These rules define the number of fractional digits for a currency and the rounding increment where appropriate.
Money output string formatting output using the hex package ex_cldr that correctly rounds to the appropriate number of fractional digits and to the correct rounding increment for currencies that have minimum cash increments (like the Swiss Franc and Australian Dollar)

Exchange rates and currency conversion

Money includes a process to retrieve exchange rates on a periodic basis. These exchange rates can then be used to support currency conversion. This service is not started by default. If started it will attempt to retrieve exchange rates every 5 minutes.

By default, exchange rates are retrieved from Open Exchange Rates however any module that conforms to the Money.ExchangeRates behaviour can be configured.

An optional callback module can be defined. This module defines a rates_retrieved/2 function that is invoked upon every successful retrieval of exchange rates.

Configuration

Money provides a set of configuration keys to customize behaviour. The default configuration is:

config :ex_money,
  exchange_rate_service: false,
  exchange_rates_retrieve_every: 360_000,
  api_module: Money.ExchangeRates.OpenExchangeRates,
  open_exchange_rates_app_id: nil,
  callback_module: Money.ExchangeRates.Callback,
  log_failure: :warn,
  log_info: :info,
  log_success: nil

These keys are are defined as follows:

exchange_rate_service is a boolean that determines whether to start the exchange rate retrieval service. The default it false.
exchange_rates_retrieve_every defines how often the exchange rates are retrieved in milliseconds. The default is 5 minutes (360,000 milliseconds)
api_module identifies the module that does the retrieval of exchange rates. This is any module that implements the Money.ExchangeRates behaviour. The default is Money.ExchangeRates.OpenExchangeRates
open_exchange_rates_app_id defines the app_id that is required to use the Open Exchange Rates api
callback_module defines a module that follows the Money.ExchangeRates.Callback behaviour whereby the function rates_retrieved/2 is invoked after every successful retrieval of exchange rates. The default is Money.ExchangeRates.Callback.
log_failure defines the log level at which api retrieval errors are logged. The default is :warn
log_success defines the log level at which successful api retrieval notifications are logged. The default is nil which means no logging.
log_info defines the log level at which service startup messages are logged. The default is info.

Keys can also be configured to retrieve values from environment variables. This lookup is done at runtime to facilitate deployment strategies. If the value of a configuration key is {:system, "some_string"} then "some_string" is interpreted as an environment variable name which is passed to System.get_env/2. An example configuration might be:

config :ex_money,
  exchange_rate_service: {:system, "RATE_SERVICE"},
  exchange_rates_retrieve_every: {:system, "RETRIEVE_EVERY"},
  open_exchange_rates_app_id: {:system, "OPEN_EXCHANGE_RATES_APP_ID"}

Why yet another Money package?

Fully localized formatting and rounding using ex_cldr
Provides serialization to Postgres using a composite type and MySQL using a JSON type that keeps both the currency code and the amount together removing a source of potential error
Uses the Decimal type in Elixir and the Postgres numeric type to preserve precision. For MySQL the amount is serialised as a string to preserve precision that might otherwise be lost if stored as a JSON numeric type (which is either an integer or a float)
Includes a set of financial calculations (arithmetic and cash flow calculations) that follow solid rounding rules

Examples

Creating a %Money{} struct

iex> Money.new(:USD, 100)
 #Money<:USD, 100>

 iex> Money.new("CHF", 130.02)
 #Money<:CHF, 130.02>

 iex> Money.new("thb", 11)
 #Money<:THB, 11>

The canonical representation of a currency code is an atom that is a valid ISO4217 currency code. The amount of a %Money{} is represented by a Decimal.

Optional ~M sigil

An optional sigil module is available to aid in creating %Money{} structs. It needs to be imported before use:

import Money.Sigil

~M[100]USD
#> #Money<:USD, 100>

Localised String formatting

See also Money.to_string/2 and Cldr.Number.to_string/2):

iex> Money.to_string Money.new("thb", 11)
"THB11.00"

iex> Money.to_string Money.new("USD", 234.467)
"$234.47"

iex> Money.to_string Money.new("USD", 234.467), format: :long
"234.47 US dollars"

Note that the output is influenced by the locale in effect. By default the localed used is that returned by Cldr.get_local/0. Its default value is “en”. Additional locales can be configured, see Cldr. The formatting options are defined in Cldr.Number.to_string/2.

Arithmetic Functions

Currency Conversion

A %Money{} struct can be converted to another currency using Money.to_currency/3. For example:

iex> Money.to_currency Money.new(:USD,100), :AUD
#Money<:AUD, 136.4300>

iex> Money.to_currency Money.new(:USD,100), :ZIP
** (Money.UnknownCurrencyError) The currency code :ZIP is not known

iex> Money.to_currency Money.new(:USD,100), :XXX
** (Money.ExchangeRateError) No exchange rate is available for currency :XXX

A user-defined map of exchange rates can also be supplied:

iex> Money.to_currency Money.new(:USD,100), :AUD, %{USD: Decimal.new(1.0), AUD: Decimal.new(1.3)}
#Money<:AUD, 130>

Financial Functions

A set of financial functions are available in the module Money.Financial. These are used in the Money module. See Money for the available functions.

Serializing to a Postgres database with Ecto

First generate the migration to create the custom type:

mix money.gen.postgres.migration
* creating priv/repo/migrations
* creating priv/repo/migrations/20161007234652_add_money_with_currency_type_to_postgres.exs

Then migrate the database:

mix ecto.migrate
07:09:28.637 [info]  == Running MoneyTest.Repo.Migrations.AddMoneyWithCurrencyTypeToPostgres.up/0 forward
07:09:28.640 [info]  execute "CREATE TYPE public.money_with_currency AS (currency_code char(3), amount numeric(20,8))"
07:09:28.647 [info]  == Migrated in 0.0s

Create your database migration with the new type (don’t forget to mix ecto.migrate as well):

defmodule MoneyTest.Repo.Migrations.CreateLedger do
  use Ecto.Migration

  def change do
    create table(:ledgers) do
      add :amount, :money_with_currency
      timestamps()
    end
  end
end

Create your schema using the Money.Ecto.Composite.Type ecto type:

defmodule Ledger do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "ledgers" do
    field :amount, Money.Ecto.Composite.Type

    timestamps()
  end
end

Insert into the database:

iex> Repo.insert %Ledger{amount: Money.new(:USD, 100)}
[debug] QUERY OK db=4.5ms
INSERT INTO "ledgers" ("amount","inserted_at","updated_at") VALUES ($1,$2,$3)
[{"USD", #Decimal<100>}, {{2016, 10, 7}, {23, 12, 13, 0}}, {{2016, 10, 7}, {23, 12, 13, 0}}]

Retrieve from the database:

iex> Repo.all Ledger
[debug] QUERY OK source="ledgers" db=5.3ms decode=0.1ms queue=0.1ms
SELECT l0."amount", l0."inserted_at", l0."updated_at" FROM "ledgers" AS l0 []
[%Ledger{__meta__: #Ecto.Schema.Metadata<:loaded, "ledgers">, amount: #<:USD, 100.00000000>,
  inserted_at: ~N[2017-02-21 00:15:40.979576],
  updated_at: ~N[2017-02-21 00:15:40.991391]}]

Serializing to a MySQL (or other non-Postgres) database with Ecto

Since MySQL does not support composite types, the :map type is used which in MySQL is implemented as a JSON column. The currency code and amount are serialised into this column.

defmodule MoneyTest.Repo.Migrations.CreateLedger do
  use Ecto.Migration

  def change do
    create table(:ledgers) do
      add :amount, :map
      timestamps()
    end
  end
end

Create your schema using the Money.Ecto.Map.Type ecto type:

defmodule Ledger do
  use Ecto.Schema

  schema "ledgers" do
    field :amount, Money.Ecto.Map.Type

    timestamps()
  end
end