Hi! More on a philosophical note, and for personal interest and collective amusement rather than for any serious reasons... I would like to invite you join a little exploration and hopefully discussion of how time relates to money using concepts of bookkeeping.
Time can be modeled as income and expenses. I would agree that time that we get to live is an income in bookkeeping terms - it should not be modeled as an asset because future lifetime is not free for us to dispose of. Should time that we have lived in the past be seen as expended? I am inclined to think so. It would make sense as a counterpart for income. Time and money can be traded against each other. One typical example is the tracking of billable hours to generate invoices, as e.g. supported by ledger and hledger, where time spent working is exchanged for money receivable. On a further note, if I pay others to do my work, what effect does it have? If it saved time, where does the saved time go, since it cannot be kept? Must be expended right away? option "operating_currency" "EUR" option "operating_currency" "HOURS" plugin "beancount.plugins.auto_accounts" 2018-02-05 * "One Day split into how I spent its 24 hours" Income:Lifetime -24.00 HOURS ; Is time that I get to live an income? Expenses:Sleeping 8 HOURS ; and time that I lived an expense? Expenses:Work:HoursReceivable 12 HOURS ; Receivable because this time has a receivable monetary value Expenses:Food 1 HOURS ; I spend both money and time on food (for purchasing and eating) Expenses:Food 10 EUR Assets:Cash -10 EUR Expenses:Recreation 3 HOURS ; Although we may think of it as time gained, it is also time expended 2018-02-28 * "Salary" Income:Salary -1000 EUR Assets:Cash 1000 EUR Expenses:Work:HoursReceivable -160 HOURS Expenses:Work:HoursReimbursed 160 HOURS ; Is this how time is traded for money? ; I.e., hours are transferred between expense accounts, ; but money is transferred between income and assets? ; Why this difference? 2018-03-01 * "Domestic help" Expenses:Household 50 EUR Assets:Cash -50 EUR Expenses:Household -2 HOURS Expenses:Other 2 HOURS ; Let's say I saved two hours by hiring a domestic help. ; Where did these two hours go? Since time cannot be stored, it must have been spent otherwise. ; Let's say I always pay for others to do my chores, is the negative time spent a reality or just hypothetical? 2018-03-05 * "Lunch" Expenses:Food 5 EUR Assets:Cash -5 EUR ; A simple lunch involves time as well, but bookkeeping has to stop somewhere, right? ;-) What about other accounting concepts and account types such as assets, liabilities and equity ... do they have a meaning with regard to time? What do you think? And from a practical point of view: How have you modeled time spent, as well as time saved or sold as employer or employee, respectively? wish you a good evening!, best regards, Johannes -- --- 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.
