There are two methods going on in this thread, a simple method of keeping a running account of the other person's contributions and paying their share of expenses from that account, and a more complex method of maintaining a separate beancount ledger dedicated for the project and that recording contributions from all parties. I'll assume you meant the former, simpler method, not the latter.
It's simple: you book the other side of the deposit to the account for each person's contribution: 2018-01-25 * "Money for rent and other expenses" Assets:Pending:Bob -1000.00 USD Assets:Checking 1000.00 USD 2018-01-25 * "Money for rent and other expenses" Assets:Pending:Alice -1100.00 USD Assets:Checking 1100.00 USD When it's time to pay the rent, you just pay your bit (Expenses:Rent) and use their account to pay the remaining portions: 2018-02-01 * "Paying the rent" Assets:Checking -2400.00 USD Assets:Pending:Bob 800.00 USD Assets:Pending:Alice 800.00 USD Expenses:Rent 800.00 USD Whether you choose to maintain their accounts as assets or liabilities - merely a naming change - is a matter of whether they choose to pay you ahead of time most of the time (you safeguard some of their money in preparation for spending - Assets), or after the fact, i.e., after expenses have accrued (they always owe you after you've paid for them - Liabilities). In either case, the signs all stay the same. When you pay the rent, you increase their accounts (if they started at zero, those hold a receivable that you have on them). When they pay you, you decrease that receivable (or increase the liability - a negative number). Hope this helps, On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 12:21 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > This thread feels suspiciously close to the change I'm trying to model, > but it's still not quite making sense to me. > > I have several roommates. I originally thought that each person would pay > into an "Asset:Pending:GoesToRent" account, then that would pay out to the > "Expenses:Housing:TheMortgage" expense. > > The wrinkle comes in that they're paying me into my "Assets:Checking" > account, and I want to do balance assertions on it. The account diversion > stuff mentioned previously appears to be just syntatic sugar for mapping to > a tag. Is that right? > > My goal is to understand how much of my housing expense is coming from me > versus everyone else, so an intermediate account seems necessary? > > Would love to hear your thoughts, > -justin > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/ > msgid/beancount/d85bad13-fd62-4241-80bf-13654e122045%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/d85bad13-fd62-4241-80bf-13654e122045%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAK21%2BhOwYTMgQLDb07wQMjGjV7j9iyY-vg8X%2B1y7h2E_rL%3DU2A%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
