Family usage of gnucash

[FireFly]

For the family usage, I think it depends, the scenario given (splitting bills) is actually relatively easy (at least IMHO)

The way I'd handle it,

For each person I'd setup an extra expense account, 

So I'd have (for the example given)

Expenses:Husband
Expenses:Wife

Let say a electric bill comes in, now the agreement on that is that each person pays 50%, and the bill is $100 (for simply math)

I'd have a transfer from Expenses:Husband and Expenses:Wife into Expenses:Electric so you'd now have

Expenses:Husband Credit: 50
Expenses:Wife Credit: 50
Expenses:Electric Debit:100

When the husband pays the bill, you'd now have

Expenses:Husband: Debit:50
Expenses:Wife Credit:50
Expenses:Electric Debit:100 (still) (no change here)

This also lends itself to splitting bills by other percentages or actual amounts, for example, say the phone bill is split 70/30, where the wife pays 70%

For a $100 phone bill that now comes in, you'd have

Expenses:Husband Debit: 20
Expenses:Wife Credit: 120
Expenses:Electric Debit:100 (still)
Expenses:Phone Debit:100

If the wife pays the entire bill, you get

Expenses:Husband Debit:20 (still)
Expenses:Wife Credit:20
Expenses:Electric Debit:100 (still)
Expenses:Phone Debit:100 (still)

Now, depending on what other questions you're trying to answer, this may (or may not) give enough information, and I'm ignoring the double accounting part of the payments, I'm assuming you have asset accounts (or something) for those.


- James Duerr

E-mail: FireFlys_98 at yahoo.com
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