Question regarding personal loans and paying expenses

[Maf. King]

On Saturday 03 Jul 2004 17:14, Christopher Scott wrote:
> Any help on this is very much appreciated.
>
> I have loaned money to a person.  Let's say the outstanding balance is
> $1000.
>
> I have a recurring monthly expense.  Let's say this expense is always
> $50.
>
> Let's also say that I track this person's checking account in Gnucash.
>
> In Gnucash, how do I represent this?  I tried doing something like
>
> Expenses:Monthly    $100CR
> Assets:Loan                $100DB
>
> but that leaves out the removal of $100 from the checking account.
>
> If I try to account for it as follows:
>
> Expenses:Monthly    $100CR
> Checking                   $100DB
>
> then the loan doesn't get properly credited.
>
> Thank you.
>
>
> =====

Hi, 

I'm not exactly sure I understand your question, but a split transaction may 
help you:

Checking : 	-$150
Loan:	+$100
Expense: +$50

or, it is 3 transactions:

other person checking: -$100
other person loan : +$100   (remember it is a liability to the other person)

my loan : -$100  (to you, it is an asset)
my checking +$100

my checking : -$50
my expense: +$50

IANAA, so I only _think_ the above is correct.  I'm probably missing how the 
money actually moves from liability:his-loan to asset:my-loan.

If you are trying to track your accounts and someone else's accounts in the 
same gnucash data file then you probably want to consider splitting that into 
2 files - one for each person.  Makes things more transparent in the long 
run. 

Hope that is of some help,
Maf.