How to model this in GNU Cash?

David Cousens davidcousens at bigpond.com
Fri Jan 17 20:50:58 EST 2014


Not clear if you are keeping separate GnuCash files for your self, your wife and the joint expenses. 

If so, the Joint income account (presumably in Euros) has 1000Eu increase in its bank account with 500Eu coming from you indirectly and 500 Eu from your wife which would be debited to its Joint Bank balance and a corresponding Joint Income account would have the corresponding amount credited to it .  This is the single double entry transaction recording the income as  an increase in the asset (bank account) value.

Any expenses paid out of the joint account would have an entry which credits the bank account for the amount and debits a relevant  expense account i.e.  Expense-Rent, Expense-cable etc.  for the expense. That's the easy part.

 The difficulty is in accounting for your wife paying the full 1000Eu into the joint account. If in her file you set up an ExpenseJoint account and a "dummy" expense account Expense_RodContribution you would record the transfer of the 1000Eu from your wife's Eu account by a 1000Eu debit to her EuBank account and a 500Eu credit to each of the above expense accounts.  The first records her contribution of $500Eu on her own part and the second the $500Eu she contributes on your behalf

At the same time you will record the debit  of 500Eu converted to US$ (that you deposit in her US bank account in US$) in her USBank account and a credit of 500Eu to the dummy Expense_RodContribution account (or other suitable name meaningful in the context). This records  her contribution of your component of the joint expenses and your reimbursement of her for that.  This dummy expense account should have a zero balance when all the transactions are completed for a month and she has been reimbursed for contributing on your behalf.  

This is the check that you have made equal contributions to the joint expense. Conversion rates Eu->US$  should probably be the rate at the  time your wife makes the transfer of funds to the joint bank account not when you transfer the money to her account in the US.  You will also have to account for any transfer fees, conversion fees etc.

In your file you record a debit in US$ equivalent to 500Eu and a credit to your Expense Joint account of the same amount. (You would probably maintain this account in US$.)

This is one possibility. 

David		
			
-----Original Message-----
From: Rodlogic [mailto:admin at rodlogic.net] 
Sent: Friday, 17 January 2014 3:19 AM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: How to model this in GNU Cash?

A new GNUCash user here and only somewhat familiar with double-entry accounting. 

I want to use it for family budgeting purposes. The basic budget configuration is easy enough and the existing manual covers most of what I need. However, I have a couple of specifics that I would to also like model in GNUCash.

My wife and I both have our own incomes and personal budgets (we do whatever we want with our money), but we also have a joint account that we use to pay for our joint expenses (e.g. cable, cleaning, rent, etc). We did a one time calculation of our expenses, added a little buffer on top of that and every month she deposits into our joint account 100% of this budgeted amount (say it’s 1000.00). We live in Europe and these accounts are in Euro. I work remote and earn my salary in the US so I have an account in US Dollars there and so does she, although no income in the US. At the same time she deposits 100% of the amount in Euro’s in our joint account, I deposit the equivalent of 50% of that into her US account in dollars. And we are squared.

How should I model this monthly 1000.00 euro deposit? The obvious answer would be as an income account. But how should I model the fact that I need to deposit 500.00 euros into her US account? I want to make sure that this 50%/50% is balanced properly.

I also want to have my own personal budget, investments etc as a different gnu cash file, but this should not be part of the joint budget, just the fact that I must pay her 50% of our monthly budget in US dollars.

thanks for any advice!







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