Surprise loans, how to retroactively book them?

[Casey Link]

Hi there,

This is more of an accounting  question than a beancount technical question, but I've seen similar questions before, so I hope it's ok.

I use beancount to run the bookkeeping for a small local club.

We have insurance costs every year.

It turns out that a portion of these insurance expenses included "extra" coverage for certain members. These members are supposed to payback their share.

I need to amend the books to represent the fact that the club is owned money.

I know how we *should* have done it, something like this:

2019-11-30 * "Insurance provider" "payment for insurance"
  Assets:BankAccount     -500.00 EUR
  Expenses:Insurance      400.00 EUR
  Assets:Receivable:Alice 100.00 EUR

2020-01-01 * "Alice" "she pays back her share"
  Assets:Receivable:Alice -100.00 EUR
  Assets:BankAccount       100.00 EUR

The problem is we only booked the expense as a simple expense.

Is there a way to enter these loans into the ledger such that I don't edit the past expense transactions?

I've been trying something like this

2019-11-30 * "Insurance provider" ""
  Assets:BankAccount -500.00 EUR
  Expenses:Insurance 500.00 EUR

2021-10-14 * "Alice Insurance Loan" "surprise loan from 2019-11-30"
  Assets:Receivable:Alice   100.00 EUR
  Assets:Loans             -100.00 EUR

2020-11-01 * "Alice" "she pays back her share"
  Assets:Receivable:Alice -100.00 EUR
  Assets:Loans             100.00 EUR
  Assets:Loans            -100.00 EUR
  Assets:BankAccount       100.00 EUR

This balances, but I still have this Assets:Loans account hanging around with -100 EUR  :(

Would love some creative tips on how to manage this.

Thanks!

Casey

[Patrick Ruckstuhl]

Hi Casey,

I would book it like this

2019-11-30 * "Insurance provider" ""
  Assets:BankAccount -500.00 EUR
  Expenses:Insurance 500.00 EUR

2021-10-14 * "Alice Insurance Loan" "surprise loan from 2019-11-30"
  Assets:Receivable:Alice   100.00 EUR

  Expenses:Insurance       -100.00 EUR

2020-11-01 * "Alice" "she pays back her share"
  Assets:Receivable:Alice -100.00 EUR

  Assets:BankAccount       100.00 EUR

basically you reduce the expense and instead it becomes receivable assets.

Because from an Income/Expense calculation the 100 EUR should be transparent for you, only from an asset point of view they happen (until she pays it back)

Regards,

Patrick

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[Martin Blais]

+1 thanks Patrick

I would add that a peculiarity is that this is one of those cases where one posts a negative amount to reduce an expense.

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