SARS: Exchange rate for foreign income?

[ros_b]

I do some contract work overseas which gets paid to me in US$ into my FNB Global account. So the money doesn't get converted into Rands, but I have to convert it in order to declare it. As I see it, I have two options, but I'm not sure if both are allowed:

1. Use the average exchange rate over the year for each of the deposits, regardless of when the deposits were made. Looking at the table published by SARS (http://www.sars.gov.za/AllDocs/Lega...-2012-02 - Average Exchange Rates Table A.pdf), that would be R14.2595 for the year ended Feb 2017.

2. Use the actual rate as published by SARS on the day that each payment was made. Rates extracted from this site: https://tools.sars.gov.za/rex/rates/MultipleDefault.aspx

Option 1 is simpler since it's just one rate for all payments. But is it allowed? Note that some payments only happened months after the work was completed, eg a job from Feb 8-13 2017 only got paid in May 2017.

 

[Tomtomtom]

You can use basically any reasonable method. Doesn't even have to be SARS' rates. Just keep it consistent. (You can't pick the method that gives you the most favourable rates this month and ditch it next month.)

Bear in mind there's usually an unrealized loss when you use published (interbank) rates, because you'll never actually see that many Ronds for each USD when you sell to a moneychanger. You can claim the loss if/when you realize it.