Partial refunds

[strikov...@gmail.com]

Hi Martin.


I am trying to use Beancount to track my finances and it works really great so far. However, I've just stumbled across a scenario where I don't understand how I should reflect it in a journal.

Suppose that I book a hotel on Monday for my upcoming weekend trip. I put a transaction in my journal


2016-09-06 * "Hotel booking"
  Assets:PL:Bank:Checking   -900.00 USD
  Expenses:Trips:Hotels          900.00 USD

But later I have to cancel my trip. Hence, I cancel my hotel booking. Due to late cancellation hotel refunds me partially: 95% of original amount.

Now my questions is how should I represent this refund in my journal? I don't understand what account I should use for debit.

Thanks

-- 

Alexander

[Zhuoyun Wei]

2016-09-08 23:05:59 strikov...@gmail.com <strikov...@gmail.com>:

>
> 2016-09-06 * "Hotel booking"
>   Assets:PL:Bank:Checking   -900.00 USD
>   Expenses:Trips:Hotels          900.00 USD
>

Personally I will use another transaction like this for this kind of situation:

2016-09-07 * "Hotel booking (refund)"
Expenses:Trips:Hotels -855.00 USD ; 95% of 900.00 USD
Assets:PL:Bank:Checking +855.00 USD ; or whatever account name

This way I know the date of payment and the date of refund.

--
Zhuoyun Wei

[Martin Blais]

I would undo the transaction a bit differently, reversing the expense entirely but booking the difference to a cancellation fee account, not a hotel:

  2016-09-06 * "Hotel booking"    ^45e0f9f1288f

    Expenses:Trips:Hotels         -900.00 USD

    Assets:PL:Bank:Checking    855.00 USD

    Expenses:Trips:CancellationFees  5.00 USD

Furthermore, I tend to tie those types of transactions with a link (as above), so I can report on their combined balances using "bean-doctor linked".

--
Zhuoyun Wei

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[Dominik Aumayr]

Hi Alexander,

the cancellation could look like this:

2016-09-07 * "Hotel booking refund"
Assets:PL:Bank:Checking 850.00 USD

Expenses:Trips:Hotels -900.00 USD

Expenses:Trips:CancellationFees 50.00 USD

This is assuming the refund was returned to your checking-account. This also assumes that you are tracking the cancellation fees in a separate expenses account.

If you do not track the fees separately just book -850.00 USD on your Expenses:Trips:Hotels, so the fee of 50.00 USD will remain there as expenses for hotels, even if not consumed.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Dominik

PS: If you are new to Beancount, check out http://aumayr.github.io/fava/ => It's a web interface for Beancount.

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