Multilingual exports, foreign currencies, and one inventory record across borders

International galleries do not run one language and one currency. A Basel booth quotes in euros, the London desk invoices in pounds, the registrar files insurance in dollars, and the artist's titles ship in French and English on the same condition report. When those variants live in parallel spreadsheets, fair week becomes a translation project with legal exposure.

Registrar-grade internationalization means language and currency are fields on the object graph, not post-processing on whatever PDF you exported last. This post covers what to store once in inventory and how exports, rooms, and finance should read it without retyping.

Separate UI language from publishing language

Staff may work in German while the gallery's default publishing language is English. Those are different problems. The app UI should localize for the logged-in user — navigation, settings, CRM labels — across the languages your team actually speaks.

Art.industries ships the workspace UI in English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Switching UI language does not mutate catalogue data; it changes how operators interact with the same records.

Default publishing language is a workspace setting that drives public-facing outputs: which title variant appears first on the website, which locale paths Website Studio generates, and which language PDF exports treat as primary when you export a single-language packet.

Translated titles belong on the work, not in a side file

Multilingual titles are not cosmetic. They appear on wall labels, customs forms, loan agreements, and collector rooms. Store title translations as linked variants on the artwork — English primary, French alt_title, and additional languages where you routinely publish — so every export pulls the same spelling the registrar approved.

When a work enters a fair checklist, the checklist export should include the language the shipper and insurer expect, not whatever someone typed into Excel the night before crating.

For exhibitions and posts, the same model applies: translated names and bodies stay attached to the canonical record so SEO slugs and object IDs remain stable while presentation localizes.

PDF exports with localized field labels

A condition report destined for a Swiss insurer should not ship with English-only section headings unless that is what the recipient expects. PDF exports should localize field labels and document headings — Artist, Dimensions, Provenance, Invoice, Certificate of Authenticity — from locale bundles, not from hand-edited templates per country.

Art.industries PDF exports support English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean for caption fields and document labels. Choose the export language at generation time; the underlying work IDs and prices stay constant.

Multilingual PDF layouts go further: export one packet with stacked or side-by-side titles when a lender wants both English and French on the same tear sheet. Missing translation warnings in preview beat silent fallbacks to blank titles on a loan document.

One list price, documented display currencies

Retail price belongs on the work in your primary trading currency — the currency your consignor agreements and primary market lists use. That is the audit anchor.

International sales also need display prices in the currencies collectors expect to read: EUR for EU advisors, GBP for London, USD for US institutions. Store those as explicit amounts on the work, not as mental math from today's exchange rate.

Viewing rooms with a currency menu read display prices from inventory. Collectors switch presentation; the gallery still knows exactly which number was quoted when the invoice is issued. Surprises on checkout are how deals die.

Invoices inherit currency from the sale context. Deposits, instalments, and credit notes stay in the invoice currency so partial payments reconcile without a FX spreadsheet on the side.

Accounting exports and FX for finance

Operations speak in list currencies; finance often reports in one base currency. Accounting exports should convert paid invoice lines to the workspace default currency using documented rates on payment date — not a generic "today" rate pulled at export time.

That discipline matters when a Geneva sale settles in CHF, a New York deposit arrives in USD, and the partner asks for a month-end roll-up in EUR. Line-level detail with source currency, payment currency, and converted amount beats a summary that nobody can audit.

Dimensions, dates, and locale conventions

Dimensions display in the units shippers expect — centimetres vs inches — with consistent conversion rules on exports. Dates follow workspace preference: US, EU, or ISO formats on captions and invoices so a London collector and a New York registrar read the same document without ambiguity.

Public websites can serve locale-aware paths when Website Studio publishes multilingual artist and exhibition pages. Translation applies to presentation; the underlying work ID stays constant for CRM, analytics, and inventory history.

Checklist before the next international fair

• Default publishing language and workspace currency set in Settings.
• Title translations entered for works on the fair checklist in every language the booth packet requires.
• Display prices documented for currencies you will quote on iPads and in rooms.
• Sample PDF export generated in the insurer's language; field labels verified.
• One viewing room sent to an international collector; currency menu matches quoted amounts.
• Accounting export trial run for last month's foreign-currency sales.

The bottom line

International galleries fail at the handoff: the room quoted euros, the invoice issued in dollars from memory, the customs form used an old title translation. The fix is not hiring more fair-season staff. It is storing language and currency on the object graph and letting rooms, PDFs, sites, and exports read the same fields.

Art.industries combines seven-language UI, localized PDF exports, artwork title translations, per-work display prices, and FX-aware accounting exports on one workspace. Set publishing language once, document display currencies on the works you are showing, and generate the Basel packet from inventory instead of rebuilding it in three tools every year.