How do countries measure and manage international financial transactions?

"A balance of payments is a summary of a country’s international financial transactions showing the difference between the country’s total payments to and its total receipts from other countries. A balance of trade is the difference between the value of a country’s exports and the value of its imports during a specific time. Devaluation is a lowering of the value of a nation’s currency relative to other currencies. Exchange controls are laws that require a company earning foreign exchange, or foreign currency, from its exports to sell the foreign exchange to a control agency, such as a central bank. Floating exchange rates are a system in which prices of currencies move up and down based upon the demand for and supply of the various currencies. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization, founded in 1945, that promotes trade, makes short-term loans to member nations, and acts as a lender of last resort for troubled nations."