Roommate expenses?

[Luiz Carlos da Costa Junior]

Hi Daniel,

I do exactly what Sam said: I have one account that can have either positive
values (when she owns me money) or negative (when I own her money).

When I add a transaction, for instance, gas bill I add 50% (my part) to my
expenses account, 50% (her part) to her account and the transaction is
balanced by my checking account or money in my wallet or etc.

But instead of clearing this account each month (paying each other) we use
this balance to see who have to pay the next bills to keep the account's
value near to zero.

Another thing that I use is Google Docs: we have a shared worksheet where we
track what we have paid for the other. So we can publish in one place
everything. Note that this sheet is exactly the "same" as my GnuCash
roommates' account. I do this because she don't have access to my GnuCash
file (I keep it at my work's computer).

I hope you can get something useful from my scheme.


2009/8/30 Sam Morris <sam at robots.org.uk>

> On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:39:45 -0300, Daniel Trezub wrote:
>
> > Hi, people!
> >
> > I was wondering what can be the best way to track roommate's expenses.
> >
> > I share my apartment with a roommate, and we share the bills. The
> > problem is that we do not have a fixed way to pay the bills. Let's say
> > that in one particular month I pay the rent, the gas and the energy
> > bills, and he pays the phone, internet and the water bills. The other
> > month I can pay the water, energy and phone, and he pays the rent, gas
> > and internet. The values are then added together and divided by 2. If I
> > pay more money in bills than him this month, he gives me money. If he
> > pays more in bills than me this month, I give him money.
> >
> > So, what is the best way to keep track of this kind of thing? I was
> > thinking about setting an Liability Account to do that, but I couldn't
> > figure out a right way.
> > Any ideas from the accounting guys out there? :)
>
> You could create an Asset and a Liability account for money that your
> roommate owes you, and money that you own him.
>
> When you pay a bill, you do a split transaction from your bank account
> asset account; half of the value is transferred to an expense account for
> teh bill, and the other half to the "money owed by roommate" asset
> account.
>
> Likewise, when he pays a bill, you transfer half of the value of the bill
> from the "money owed to roommate" liability account to the expense
> account.
>
> At any point in time you can see whether you owe money or are owed money
> by subtracting the value of one account from the other.
>
> I guess you don't actually need both accounts either. You could just have
> a single asset account, and reduce/increases its balance as you/he pay
> bills; if the balance is negative then you owe him that value.
>
> Likewise, you could do it with a single liability account. Which scheme
> you prefer is up to your personal preferences.
>
> I hope that made sense!
>
> --
> Sam Morris
> https://robots.org.uk/
>
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