The source of foreign exchange rates in QuickBooks is Wall Street On Demand, a company that provides data and tools to the financial services industry.
The question on data source for foreign exchange rates often arises out of a misunderstanding of how rates downloaded by QuickBooks should be used. These rates are only a guide, and the exchange rate recorded on a multicurrency transaction should match the exchange rate used for that specific transaction. Therefore, the real source of the exchange rates you should be recording in QuickBooks is the business or financial institution with which you engaged in a foreign currency transaction. The rate downloaded by QuickBooks can be used for comparison or, in some circumstances, an estimate in the absence of other information.
One problem with downloading foreign exchange rates in QuickBooks is that there is no ability to download rates for a day other than the current business day; in other words, QuickBooks doesn’t provide access to historical exchange rates for those times when you didn’t download a particular daily rate.
See our article on online sources for historical foreign exchange rates.