Np! Glad it helped. If it helps mentally, rename Assets:Partner:Expenses to Assets:Partner:Due-to-me or Assets:Partner:Owed-to-me. The asset here is really not an expense, it’s what’s owed to you.
The advantage of calling it :Expense:.* is, queries are simpler and nicer. You can do things like SELECT account, SUM(number) where account ~ "Expenses:Phone" GROUP BY account and get an aggregate expense views. Not a recommendation, but rather, food for thought: putting this under Liabilities: is equally valid too, BTW. Make no difference to the accounting system because the signs of the number take care of everything. On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 10:20:09 AM UTC-7 [email protected] wrote: > Thanks, Red. > Apologies for the delayed response, I had a busy week and I wanted to try > your suggestion first, looking at Fava to see what were the consequences of > using Asset accounts. > To be fair, I had already tried them in the past but: > - I had not used accounts under the same hierarchy (`Asset:Partner`), so > contributions and expenses felt somewhat disconnected > - it felt weird because it didn't seem to satisfy the idea of an Asset > account as "something I have" (that's still true for > Assets:Partner:Expenses). > > From what I can see, though, your suggestion: > - ensures Net Worth is correct > - allows me to keep looking at my own slice of the expenses > - allows me to look at aggregate (shared) expenses > > ...so I think I can live with the slight conceptual weirdness of the > partner expenses "asset"! > Thanks again, 😌 > > Angelo > On Monday, 3 July 2023 at 19:55:18 UTC+1 Red S wrote: > >> I would personally use an Assets:Partner account: >> Assets:Partner:Contributions ; instead of Equity:PartnerContributions >> Assets:Partner:Expenses ; instead of Equity:PartnerExpenses >> >> This: >> >> - makes it trivial to query your partner’s contributions and expenses >> (they’re just the accounts above) >> - Optionally, you could add ` Assets:Partner:Expenses:Phone`, ` >> Assets:Partner:Expenses:Utilities` >> etc. >> - the top-level account (Assets:Partner) trivially tells you if your >> partner owes you, or you owe her, or you’re even at any point in time >> (positive/negative/zero balance) >> - in addition, this is factored into your own Assets automatically, >> as it should. I.e., if your partner owes you 100 GBP, it is automatically >> a >> part of your own assets, as it should be >> >> >> >> >> >> On Monday, July 3, 2023 at 7:09:14 AM UTC-7 [email protected] wrote: >> >>> Hi, everyone; apologies in advance for the wall of text. >>> >>> So, I have a fairly common use case (sharing expenses with my partner), >>> and I know it's been discussed before, but there are still a couple of >>> things I'm not sure about. I realise there may be different ways of going >>> about it (one may be to use the autobean.share >>> <https://github.com/SEIAROTg/autobean/tree/master/autobean/share> >>> plugin, but I'm wary of adding plugin-specific metadata for now). >>> >>> *Previous relevant threads, for reference* >>> - Loosely tracking shared expenses between partners >>> <https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/p05e3hMqpJY/m/GJxoI33sBAAJ> >>> (Dec 17) >>> - Expenses paid with external account >>> <https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/USNXP2vIWHY/m/dMZdeUXrCQAJ> >>> (Jun 20) >>> - Payees, subaccounts, channels >>> <https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/vefi9DzrU4s/m/tB2nsseJAgAJ> >>> (Jul 22) >>> - Sharing household expenses >>> <https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/K8SSrCVikeY/m/bO0Aa1ONAQAJ> >>> (Aug 22) >>> >>> *My scenario* >>> - I use Beancount, my partner doesn't (meaning she doesn't care for the >>> same level of granularity in expense accounts, but she may be interested in >>> coarser aggregates). >>> - We have a joint bank account which we use for shared expenses. >>> - We're adding a fixed amount to said account each month. >>> - We split shared expenses (and, consequently, deposits to the joint >>> account) roughly in proportion to our relative income, so it's not 50/50. >>> - The bank where the joint account is (Monzo) has a decent API, so I can >>> get a JSON dump of all transactions, or a delta. >>> - I have an importer for our joint account which can already do the math >>> and prorate a posting's amount accordingly. I suppose it would be easy to >>> turn the prorating part into a plugin instead, in case that made more sense. >>> - I still review transactions manually, to fix payees and expense >>> categories as required. >>> >>> >>> *Sample ledger* >>> Here's a public gist >>> <https://gist.github.com/tatablack/2a2b733ec5979ad052721f264492585f> >>> with a sample ledger. In this example I am using Equity accounts for both >>> my partner's deposits and her share of expenses from the joint account; >>> e.g.: >>> >>> 2023-06-01 * "My partner" "June top-up: 40% of £2000" >>> Equity:PartnerContributions -800.00 GBP >>> Assets:UK:SharedBank:Joint >>> >>> 2023-06-12 * "Electricity" "" >>> Expenses:Bills:Electricity 0.60 * 150.00 GBP >>> Assets:UK:SharedBank:Joint -150.00 GBP >>> Equity:PartnerExpenses >>> >>> *Solved problems* >>> My goals include being able to build reports showing my own expenses as >>> well as an aggregate of our shared ones (e.g. "how much are OUR rent + >>> bills + subscriptions each month?"). Red's suggestion >>> <https://groups.google.com/g/beancount/c/K8SSrCVikeY/m/P8HzhLhHAwAJ> to >>> use BQL's FINDFIRST and other_accounts works well for this. >>> >>> *Questions* >>> 1. Should I consider my partner's monthly deposits to our joint account >>> as "Income" instead? It doesn't feel right, because I can't really dispose >>> of that money other than for sharing expenses, but mainly because I don't >>> want to track the equivalent outgoing transactions under my own "Expenses" >>> hierarchy. >>> >>> 2. Looking at the definitions of the various types of account in the >>> docs, I can't figure out what type of account my partner's share of >>> expenses should be booked to—"Equity" feels a bit of a hack. >>> >>> "Equity" should, according to the docs, be used for accounts that hold a >>> "summary of the net income implied by all the past activity". In my head, I >>> could apply this to the account used to deposit money into the joint >>> account, but not to the one for expenses. >>> >>> Any other suggestions? Anything obvious I'm missing? >>> >>> Thanks in advance! >>> >>> *Angelo* >>> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. 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