Calculating commission rates in different currencies

Speaker 1: Hi Briony, thank you for shadowing me today.

In this company, we sell subscriptions to schools all around the world for our services.

So every financial quarter I work out my commission.

Speaker 2: Sorry, what's a financial quarter?

Speaker 1: It's just three months out of the year.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 1: So within those three months, I have to make £15,000 of sales.

If I hit that, I get 6 percent of that as commission.

So here is an overview of all of my different countries that I've worked in.

So you can see Germany, Italy, France and Hong Kong, and all of the different amounts of subscriptions that I've made here.

Germany, Italy, and France all pay in euros, so let's just count up how many sales in euros I've made in total, and then the conversion after that.

Speaker 2: OK great.

Speaker 1: So I've made 48 sales in Germany, 12 in Italy and 10 in France, 70 in total.

One subscription is 300 euros, so I've made 21,000 euros in sales.

Now, to calculate how much that is in pounds, we first need to know how much 1 euro is in 1 pound.

We just go online and we check it, 0.866198, so let's just round that up to make it 87p, which comes to, and that's where we use the calculator.

Speaker 2: Good.

Speaker 1: 21,000 times 0.87 is 18,270 pounds.

Speaker 2: Fantastic.

Speaker 1: Perfect.

Speaker 1: So now we know how much I've made in the eurozone. The next country is Hong Kong.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: I made 22 sales there, each worth 2,000 Hong Kong dollars.

Speaker 2: Do you mind?

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely go for it.

Speaker 2: 22 times 2,000 equals 44,000.

So now I need to find out the exchange rate.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So 1 Hong Kong Dollar equals 0.104 we round that down to ten.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: That's 10 pence

Speaker 1: Perfect.

Speaker 2: We will times it by 0.1, which is our 10 pence.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: So that's 44,000 times 0.1 equals 4,400 pounds.

Speaker 1: Yep. So now we need to know how much money I've made in total in pounds.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 1: OK, so we now know how much money I made in the eurozone in pounds.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: And we know how much money I made in pounds in Hong Kong.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: So we just add that all up together, to see how much money I made in total, and to see if I've hit my target.

Speaker 2: Well, you've sold, 18,270 in the eurozone

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: Plus the 4,400 from Hong Kong.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: So all together, that's 22,670.

Speaker 1: Which means that I'm well over my target.

Speaker 2: Brilliant.

Speaker 1: Thank you. So that means I get a 6% commission.

Speaker 2: Right, OK.

Speaker 1: Can you show me how you would come to 6% of that number?

Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I would divide the total by 100 to get 1%. 226.7.

And then I would times that by six to get 6%. 1,360 pounds and 20 pence.

Speaker 1: That's my commission, exactly so.

Speaker 2: Enjoy!

Speaker 1: Thank you.