Holding your margin when the dollar moves

You win a United States deal, price it in New Zealand dollars, and agree to net-60 terms because that is what the customer's procurement team asked for. Two months later the invoice is paid, and it is worth less than the number you signed. Nothing went wrong. You were not discounted. The exchange rate simply moved while you waited, and it quietly took a slice of a margin you had already counted as yours.

That slice is the part of offshore selling nobody models on the way in. The price gets argued over for weeks. The currency and the timing, which together decide what the price is actually worth, get waved through. Here is how to stop handing that margin away.

The bet you make without noticing

Every time you price a deal in one currency and collect it in another, or price in your own and get paid weeks later, you are holding a currency position. Not because you set out to trade foreign exchange, but because exchange rates and payment terms both refuse to sit still.

The New Zealand dollar is not a quiet currency. Across 2025 the NZD/USD rate ran from about 0.56 up to roughly 0.60 and back again, a move of several cents, and as at early October 2026 it sits near 0.56. On one invoice a few cents is noise. Across a year of offshore revenue it is a line on your profit and loss that you never decided to manage.

What a 10 percent swing actually costs

Make it concrete. You sign a United States customer for US$100,000, priced in US dollars, paid on net-60. At signing the rate is 0.56, so you have modelled about NZ$178,600.

If the New Zealand dollar strengthens to 0.62 by the time they pay, a move of about 10 percent and well inside what the NZD can do in a single year, that same US$100,000 now converts to about NZ$161,300. Same deal, same customer, same price on the contract. Over NZ$17,000 of margin gone, to nothing you can see or fix after the fact. Swing the other way and you pocket a windfall you did not earn, which is the real problem: you are running a bet you never chose to size.

Decide who holds the risk, on purpose

You cannot delete the risk. You can decide who carries it, deal by deal.

• Price in New Zealand dollars and the customer carries the swing. Cleanest for you. Larger offshore buyers often push back, because they do not want your currency risk either.
• Price in the customer's currency and you carry it. Sometimes worth it to win the deal or to look like a local supplier, as long as you have built the risk into the number rather than finding it later.

The rule of thumb is simple. The side that can least afford a nasty surprise should not be the one holding it. For a small New Zealand vendor, that is usually you, so price in your own dollars where you can, and when you cannot, pad the number to cover a normal swing.

The tools, without the treasury jargon

You do not need a corporate treasury desk. Three plain moves cover most of it:

• Build a buffer into the price. If you are invoicing in a foreign currency, add a few percent to absorb a normal move. It is the simplest hedge there is, and the customer never sees a currency line.
• Match your costs to your revenue. If you earn US dollars and also spend them, on hosting, contractors or a US hire, let them cancel out. That is a natural hedge, and it costs you nothing.
• Use a forward contract for the big ones. A forward simply locks today's rate for a payment you will receive in, say, 90 days. Your bank sells them. You give up the upside, but you know exactly what the deal is worth. On a deal large enough to hurt, certainty beats a gamble.

So what should you do before the next offshore invoice?

Keep it to three habits:

• Know which currency each deal is priced and paid in, and how long the gap between signing and payment runs.
• Price in New Zealand dollars by default, and when you price in theirs, build in a buffer.
• Hedge the deals big enough to hurt, and let the small ones ride.

This matters more every year. The United States is now New Zealand's second-largest export market for goods, worth about NZ$9.0 billion in 2024, and more tech revenue is landing in US dollars alongside it. The more of your income that arrives in a currency you do not set, the more of your margin rides on a number you cannot control.

So before you send your next offshore invoice: do you know what it will be worth when it is actually paid, or are you quietly hoping the dollar sits still?

Sources. NZD/USD exchange rate: across 2025 the New Zealand dollar traded against the US dollar in a range of roughly 0.56 to 0.60, and sat near 0.56 as at early October 2026 - Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Exchange rates and the Trade Weighted Index (B1), the official NZD exchange rate series, cross-checked against publicly reported market rates. United States export value: the United States was New Zealand's second-largest export destination for goods in 2024, with goods exports worth NZ$9.0 billion - Stats NZ, "US now New Zealand's second largest export partner". The US$100,000 net-60 example and the 10 percent swing it uses are an illustrative calculation showing how a currency move converts into margin, not a forecast or a specific trade: US$100,000 at 0.56 is about NZ$178,600, and at 0.62 about NZ$161,300, a difference of about NZ$17,300. The guidance on pricing currency, buffers, natural hedging and forward contracts draws on my own experience helping New Zealand tech companies sell offshore, not a single study, and none of it is financial advice.

Nick Burns is a fractional CRO for New Zealand B2B tech companies, at home and expanding internationally. He co-founded Emendo and sold it to McKesson, then the 14th-largest company on the Fortune 500, and has since helped 60+ tech companies grow sales.