On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 1:59 AM, Erik Hetzner <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Martin, > > A few quick points: > > On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 13:33:02 -0700, > Martin Blais <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > […] > > > 2016/01/01 * "Paying the rent" > > Assets:Bank:Checking -1500 USD > > Expenses:Rent 750 USD > > Liabilities:Alice 750 USD > > From Bob’s point of view, this is an asset, not a liability - Alice owes > $750 to > Bob. Paying $1500 in rent transfers to $750 to expenses and the other $750 > to a > loan - an asset that is reduced when Alice pays back the loan, > transferring the > money from the loan asset to a bank account. > Sure, you can call these "receivables" and track them as an asset. In Ledger/Beancount worlds, that's just a matter of semantics since all accounts are treated the same, we don't recognize credit & debit accounts. The main question is whether Alice pays her balance ahead of time or after the expenses are incurred. In the former, Bob would generally have some extra money he doesn't own on hand (best viewed as a liability), in the latter case, Bob would have a receivable to be paid by Alice (best viewed as an asset). In the former, the account is positive, in the latter, it'll generally be negative. > A solution which involves a joint account means two ledger files: one to > > track Bob's personal balance sheet, and one to track the joint account. > > Someone uses the joint account to pay for the rent and updates that file, > > and Bob replicates his side of the transactions in his personal file. > > There is no reason not to track both of these accounts in the same file, > in my > opinion. > Yes there is. Alice's portion of the joint account should not appear on Bob's balance sheet. The key question is, what answers do you want? Do you want to know what > Bob’s > expenses are? Do you want to know the state of Bob’s bank account? A joint > bank > account? How much Alice owes Bob (from Bob’s point of view, or Alice’s?) > These > should guide the transactions you enter. There is no “right” answer, no > correct > model. It depends on what you want to know. No I think you're wrong about that. One has to carefully define the notion of "the entity". What's the entity? Bob's money? Bob's money including the joint property? Bob & Alice? "Bob + the joint account, including Alice's money in it" is a strange entity. > > best, Erik > -- > Sent from my free software system <http://fsf.org/>. > > -- > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ledger" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
