NetSuite Currency Revaluation: Fix Rate Mismatch Errors
A Rate Mismatch on revaluation means the rate type does not match the account's currency settings. Here is which setting to change and where.
Sarah Jenkins, CPAPrincipal Finance Automation Specialist
On this page
The "Rate Mismatch" error during NetSuite currency revaluation usually appears when the system can't match your revaluation rate type to the account's currency and rate settings. The error text reads: "Please select a rate type for revaluation" or "The currency rate for this transaction is missing." This stops the revaluation process cold, and your foreign currency balances stay unrealized until you fix it.
What's actually happening is a configuration mismatch. NetSuite's revaluation engine pulls rates based on two settings: the rate type you select on the revaluation run screen, and the default rate type assigned to each balance sheet account. When those don't align, the system throws the error and skips the account entirely.
Understanding Revaluation Rate Types
NetSuite offers several rate types, but revaluation primarily uses two: General and Cash Flow. Each serves a different purpose, and choosing the wrong one creates downstream reporting problems.
| Rate Type | Used For | Impact on Financial Statements |
|---|---|---|
| General | Non-cash balance sheet accounts (A/R, A/P, fixed assets) | Impacts retained earnings through the revaluation gain/loss account |
| Cash Flow | Cash and cash-equivalent accounts | Impacts the cash flow statement directly |
| Average | Monthly average rates | Useful for income statement accounts in some setups |
| Historical | Fixed assets, equity | Maintains original transaction rate |
Here's where teams lose hours: the rate type you pick on the revaluation run screen becomes the default for all accounts being revalued, unless an individual account has its own default rate type configured. The account-level setting wins. If your A/R account defaults to Cash Flow but you run revaluation with General, NetSuite skips it or errors out.
How Revaluation Rates Are Selected Per Account
The control here lives on each balance sheet account record. Go to Setup > Accounting > Manage Charts of Accounts, open any foreign currency account, and look for the Revaluation Rate Type field. This field determines which rate the system applies when you run the revaluation process.
The default value is General, which works for most non-cash accounts. But if you've changed it or if a previous admin set it differently, you'll get mismatches. The revaluation engine checks this field first, then applies the rate from the Currency Exchange Rate table based on the effective date of your revaluation run. For details on how exchange rates are maintained and applied across the platform, the Vendors Guide covers rate behavior on transactions and payments.
For cash accounts, the correct setting is Cash Flow. This matters from an audit perspective because cash revaluation gains and losses flow differently. Your auditors will thank you if cash accounts use the cash flow rate consistently, since it keeps the cash flow statement clean and avoids reclassification entries later.
Monthly vs. Daily Revaluation Rates
NetSuite lets you choose between Monthly and Daily revaluation rate averaging. This setting appears on the revaluation run screen under Setup > Accounting > Manage Currency Revaluation.
Monthly rates use the month-end exchange rate from the currency table. Daily rates calculate an average of daily rates across the period. The choice affects both your unrealized gain/loss calculation and your audit trail.
From a control perspective, most companies use monthly rates for period-end close. Daily rates create more volatility in your revaluation entries and generate more journal lines to review. Unless you have a specific reason to use daily averaging, monthly is the cleaner choice for GAAP reporting.
Fixing the Rate Mismatch Error Step by Step
Start by confirming which accounts are failing. Run the revaluation with a test period and review the Revaluation Report under Reports > Financial > Currency Revaluation. Accounts that failed will show no revaluation amount or an error icon.
Next, check each failing account's rate type:
- Navigate to Setup > Accounting > Manage Charts of Accounts
- Open the account record
- Review the Revaluation Rate Type field
- Confirm it matches the rate type you're using on the revaluation run
For cash accounts, set it to Cash Flow. For all other balance sheet accounts, keep General. If you changed the rate type on the run screen recently, that's the most common cause of new mismatches.
Then verify your exchange rates. Go to Lists > Accounting > Currency Exchange Rates and confirm rates exist for the revaluation period. A missing rate for any currency in your revaluation set triggers the same error. From an audit perspective, keep a screenshot of the rate table before running revaluation each period. That gives you a clean audit trail if anyone questions the rates applied.
Preventing Future Revaluation Rate Errors
The real fix is standardization. Set a company-wide policy for which rate type applies to which account class, then document it in your close procedures. Most controllers I work with use General for everything except cash, then override to Cash Flow only for the specific cash accounts that need it.
One edge case trips people up: intercompany accounts. If you revalue intercompany balances, confirm both sides of the intercompany pair use the same rate type. Otherwise, you'll create an imbalance in your intercompany elimination entries during consolidation. The control here is reviewing the intercompany account mapping before running revaluation, not after the entries post.
Also check your Revaluation Gain/Loss Account settings. Go to Setup > Accounting > Accounting Preferences > Currency and confirm the unrealized gain and loss accounts are active and mapped. If these are blank, revaluation will fail even with correct rate types.
What to Check After Revaluation Posts
Once the revaluation runs successfully, review the generated journal entries before posting. Look for the Revaluation flag on the journal entry header. This marks the entry as system-generated and prevents accidental deletion or modification without proper controls.
Confirm the rate used appears on each journal line. NetSuite stores this in the Exchange Rate field on the line. Spot-check a few lines against your currency table for the revaluation date. This is where teams lose hours during close if they skip the verification step.
If you're revaluing multiple currencies, verify each currency's rate appears correctly. A common issue is one currency using a stale rate while others update properly. The revaluation report shows this clearly, so review it before posting the batch.
For companies running revaluation across multiple subsidiaries, confirm each subsidiary's functional currency is set correctly. A subsidiary with the wrong functional currency will revalue against the wrong base, creating errors that surface days later in the consolidation process. The Item Record Management Guide includes useful context on how currency settings interact with item-level records and multi-book accounting.
The bottom-line impact of getting this right is a clean, reconciled, and audit-ready foreign currency position at every period end. When the rate mismatch error appears, work through the account rate types first, then the currency table, then the gain/loss account mapping. That sequence resolves the vast majority of issues without opening a support ticket.
If you're managing revaluation across many accounts and subsidiaries, auditing account rate type configurations in bulk before you run the process saves real time. Checking a dozen accounts manually is fine, but when you're dealing with hundreds, a structured review of your chart of accounts settings prevents the error from appearing at all. For broader guidance on how account-level defaults behave across modules, the Manufacturing Guide demonstrates the same principle of default preferences cascading from company level down to individual records.
