How to auto import / update exchange rate on internet into a cell?

Posted by Peter van Biezen on August 23, 2001 5:28 AM

Good day Mr. Excel,

I am a buyer for an international offshore company. As a buyer I purchase thousands of items per month, from a lot of different countries all over the world.
Constantly I have to compare prices in different currencies and recalculate them into EURO or USD. Ofcourse you need to work with accurate exchange rates.

I have made a fairly simple spreadsheet which calculates a value from a certain currency into other most used and common currencies or into the currency of a counter bid.

But always I have to look into the internet for accurate exchange rates, and copy them into the correct cells.

Is there a possibility to automise this, in such a way that when you start up your spreadsheet, it automatically imports (Copy/Pastes?) the correct rate from the location on internet into the correct cell?

Posted by Eric on August 23, 2001 5:46 AM

web query

There is a tool in excel called web query. You can find it under tools-->get external data--> web query. I've tried it before with mixed results; the amount and type of information that can be retrieved is highly dependent on how the web page was built.
Hope that helps

Posted by Eric on August 23, 2001 5:57 AM

also bank of england spreadsheet

Your field is not mine, so maybe you've already dismissed this as an option, but the Bank of England publishes a daily updated workbook of various exchange rates on the web in excel format at:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/mfsd/rates/daily2001.xls