Roommate expenses?

[Daniel Trezub]

I was playing around with all these ideas for the last few days. Thanks,
pals.

What do you think if I write a FAQ item about this roommate question?

=====
Daniel
http://dantrez.deviantart.com
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2009/8/30 Luiz Carlos da Costa Junior <lccostajr at gmail.com>

> 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/
> >
> > PGP key id 1024D/5EA01078
> > 3412 EA18 1277 354B 991B  C869 B219 7FDB 5EA0 1078
> >
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