How to split expenses

[Alexandre Rademaker]

I am traveling friends. We are splitting some expenses like the car rental, full, some restaurants etc. but I also want to record how I paid each expense (credit card, cash etc). Idea? What is the best practice?

Sent from my iPhone

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "AR" == Alexandre Rademaker <arade...@gmail.com> writes:

AR> I am traveling friends. We are splitting some expenses like the car
AR> rental, full, some restaurants etc. but I also want to record how I paid
AR> each expense (credit card, cash etc). Idea? What is the best practice?

I usually do something like this:

2023/01/01 Sample
Expenses:Food $10
Assets:Payable:Joe $10
Assets:Payable:Bob $10
Assets:Payable:Nancy $10
Liabilities:Credit

John

[Tobias Pfeiffer]

Hi,

FYI: We had a fairly lengthy discussion about that last year at
https://groups.google.com/g/ledger-cli/c/FcGoReYUd44/m/mSNG0qOEDgAJ

I am not sure that getting ledger to cover your use-case correctly and
completely is a good use of your travel time ;-)

Tobias

[Alexandre Rademaker]

Thank you John, I am using your approach (first) with an extra alternative when I didn’t pay but any other person pay and I need to record the liabilitie (second). Does it make sense?

2023/01/01 Sample
Expenses:Food $10
Assets:Payable:Joe $10
Assets:Payable:Bob $10
Assets:Payable:Nancy $10
Liabilities:Credit

2023/01/02 Sample
Expenses:Food $30
Liabilities:Joe $10 ; I need to pay Joe later
Assets:Joe ; it doesn’t matter for me how Joe payed, just a general account


Thank you Tobias for the link, I will read the thread!

Best,
Alexandre

[Yuri Khan]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2023 at 19:20, Alexandre Rademaker <arade...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you John, I am using your approach (first) with an extra alternative when I didn’t pay but any other person pay and I need to record the liabilitie (second). Does it make sense?

> 2023/01/02 Sample
> Expenses:Food $30
> Liabilities:Joe $10 ; I need to pay Joe later
> Assets:Joe ; it doesn’t matter for me how Joe payed, just a general account

No. If you, Bob, Nancy, and Joe each ate a $10 lunch and Joe paid $40
for it, you owe Joe 10 bucks and that’s it.

2023/01/02 Sample
Expenses:Food $10
Liabilities:Joe $10

Everything else is Joe’s own concern.

Alternatively, if you volunteered to keep track of everyone’s debts,
you can pretend that Bob and Nancy owe you $10 each, and you owe that
+ your share to Joe:

2023/01/02 Sample
Expenses:Food $10
Assets:Bob $10
Assets:Nancy $10
Liabilities:Joe

Just be sure to notice if/when Bob repays his debt to Joe so you can record it:

2023/01/03 Sample
Liabilities:Joe $10
Assets:Bob

[Yuri Khan]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2023 at 19:42, Yuri Khan <yuri....@gmail.com> wrote:

> No. If you, Bob, Nancy, and Joe each ate a $10 lunch and Joe paid $40
> for it, you owe Joe 10 bucks and that’s it.
>
> 2023/01/02 Sample
> Expenses:Food $10
> Liabilities:Joe $10

Sorry, I obviously meant -$10 in the liability. It’s also okay to omit it:

[Alexandre Rademaker]

Hi Yuri,

I see your point and you are right that using the second entry below would be simpler and record the fact that I owe ‘DF’ 3 euros. But using the first entry below allow me to also record the total amount of the expense if later on we all want to remember how much was the parking. Using only the comment would be an alternative too. The only real problem with the first entry is the fact that usually liabilities are negative, right? Maybe I could find a better name? The ‘Payable:DF’ is to record the moneys that ‘DF’ owes to me.


2023/01/07 Hotel Braga Parking
Expenses:Parking EU 3,00
Liabilities:DF EU 3,00
Assets:DF EU -6,00

versus

2023/01/07 Hotel Braga Parking
Expenses:Parking EU 3,00 ; total was 6,00
Liabilities:DF

[the.so...@gmail.com]

Money I am owed by Joe [i.e., Joe needs to pay me back]:

    Assets:Receivable:People:Joe

This amount will normally be positive, as with most assets in plaintext accounting.

Money I owe to Joe [i.e., I need to pay Joe back]:

    Liabilities:Payable:People:Joe

This amount will normally be negative, as with most liabilities in plaintext accounting.

Record the total expense your friend bore as a comment.  Record only what you owe him/her as part of the actual transaction.

So:

2023-01-12 Joe | Lunch at Cigar Volante  ; total: EUR 60.00
    Expenses:Leisure:Travel:Food         EUR 15.00
    Liabilities:Payable:People:Joe      EUR -15.00

2023-01-12 Café Nervosa
    Expenses:Leisure:Travel:Food            EUR 10.00
    Assets:Receivable:People:Joe            EUR 10.00
    Assets:Receivable:People:Nancy          EUR 10.00
    Assets:Receivable:People:Bob            EUR 10.00
    Liabilities:Credit-Card:Santander      EUR -40.00

[Yuri Khan]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2023 at 19:10, Alexandre Rademaker <arade...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I see your point and you are right that using the second entry below would be simpler and record the fact that I owe ‘DF’ 3 euros. But using the first entry below allow me to also record the total amount of the expense if later on we all want to remember how much was the parking. Using only the comment would be an alternative too. The only real problem with the first entry is the fact that usually liabilities are negative, right? Maybe I could find a better name? The ‘Payable:DF’ is to record the moneys that ‘DF’ owes to me.
>
> 2023/01/07 Hotel Braga Parking
> Expenses:Parking EU 3,00
> Liabilities:DF EU 3,00
> Assets:DF EU -6,00

If you want to track everything in full detail, you can do that too.
Just pretend that you manage all the finances.

* Count goods and services you consume into Expenses.
* Count goods and services your friends consume into
Assets:Receivable, as if they owe you.
* Track money you pay from the actual accounts you pay from (Assets if
cash or debit cards; Liabilities if credit cards).
* Track money your friends pay from Liabilities:Payable, as if you owe them.

2023-01-07 Hotel Braga Parking
Expenses:Parking EUR 3,00
Assets:Receivable:DF EUR 3,00
Liabilities:Payable:DF EUR -6,00

At the end of trip, or at any time, you can cancel out debts:

2023-01-07 Debt cancellation
Liabilities:Payable:DF EUR 3,00
Assets:Receivable:DF EUR -3,00

After the above, Assets:DF is at 0 and Liabilities:DF is at EUR -3,00,
indicating you owe DF 3 Euro.


(Unrelated: Consider using standard ISO 4217 currency codes. While we
are at it, consider also using the standard ISO 8601 date separator.)

[Alexandre Rademaker]

Continuing the trip with a friend…. I renamed the accounts suggested by John from Assets:Payable:DF to Assets:Receivable:DF. Regarding the Liabilities:DF and Liabilities:Payable:DF. Actually Liabilities:Payable is kind of redundant.. maybe Liabilities:DF is enough. 

when I paid something for us, I record the total cost and add in Assets:Receivable:DF the fact that he owe me half of the expense:

2023/01/07 Place1

    Expenses:Food           EU 6,00

    Assets:Receivable:DF    EU 6,00

    Assets:Wise             

When he paid something, I recorded that I owe him half of the total. This turned out to be the simpler alternative as Yuri's suggestion. But the alternative in the message below is interesting too, adding a little bit of extra complexity to move between Assets:Receivable:DF and Liabilities:DF, but I can do that once in the end of the trip.

2023/01/02 Sample
    Expenses:Food           EU 6,00 ; total EU 12,00
    Liabilities:DF         

But how to record when both of us paid some different amount of the same expense? Maybe this turns out to suggest to rethink the option for the case above? 

Below the total expense is EU 12,00 we should both pay EU 6,00, but I paid EU 10,00 and he paid only EU 2,00. Does it make sense? I am trying to record that I would add 6 to the amount he owe me, but at the same transaction, I am also removing EU 2,00 from that because he is giving EU 2,00. But I am not touching in the Liabilities:DF

2023/01/17 Place3

    Expenses:Food                               EU 6,00

    Assets:Receivable:DF                        EU 6,00

    Assets:Receivable:DF                       EU -2,00

    Assets:Cash                               EU -10,00

Best,

Alexandre

[Alexandre Rademaker]

Sorry for insist, but someone has any thoughts about the question in the end of the message below? Repeating here:

But how to record when both of us paid some different amount of the same expense? Maybe this turns out to suggest to rethink the option for the case above? Below the total expense is EU 12,00 we should both pay EU 6,00, but I paid EU 10,00 and he paid only EU 2,00. Does it make sense? I am trying to record that I would add 6 to the amount he owe me, but at the same transaction, I am also removing EU 2,00 from that because he is giving EU 2,00. But I am not touching in the Liabilities:DF

2023/01/17 Place3

    Expenses:Food                               EU 6,00

    Assets:Receivable:DF                        EU 6,00

    Assets:Receivable:DF                       EU -2,00

    Assets:Cash                               EU -10,00

[Lanrete Li]

I'll keep it as this:

2023/01/17 xxx

    Expense:Food                EU 6     

    Assets:Cash                 EU -10   

    Assets:Receivable:DF