How to manage shared expenses with double entry

Question

I am struggling to find a good answer but I didn't.(spent over 40 hours thinking it). I know that there is a similar question here Link but it doesn't solve my problem. How would you manage shared expenses if portions are not equal? For example if rent is 500 and one pays 400 and other one 100, then it is not 50% so balancing makes no sense. The only solution I found is by adding liabilities/reimbursements. Is there any way to achieve this?

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 13 '17 at 18:34

It's still not entirely clear what you're trying to achieve, but I'll do my best.

You say that you're tracking your books "for only me", which means that your books are just reflecting what you earn and spend from your perspective. If you pay $100 for rent and your roommate pays $400 for rent (which is what I think you're trying to say), then even if there's $500 total, your books would only show a $100 transfer from Assets:Checking to Expenses:Rent or the like. The $400 your roommate spends wouldn't show up at all, since it's not impacting you.

So, the only way I think you may be thinking that you should see it is if in fact one of you actually writes a $500 check to the landlord for rent, and the other pays their portion directly to the other. If you're paying the roommate for your portion, then again it's just a simple transfer from Assets:Checking to Expenses:Rent, even though the "payee" is your roommate. That's who you're paying for the service, and so that's what the transaction is.

If on the other hand, you pay $500 to the landlord, and then your roommate pays you back $400, then their payment to you is just a negative expense (or rebate) of the Rent that you paid.

Here's the simplest way to represent those two transactions:

Memo            Account                       Debit     Credit
------------    -----------------------       --------  --------
Payment to Landlord
                Assets:Checking                          $500.00
                Expenses:Rent                  $500.00

Reimbursement from Roommate
                Assets:Checking                          $400.00
                Expenses:Rent                  $400.00

If the two transactions are close enough to each other in time, that's probably good enough. But if it might take a while before your roommate pays you back, and you're not a fan of your records saying you've paid more rent that you're "supposed to have", you could represent what your roommate owes you as an asset (which is probably more accurate, if you've spent money on their behalf and thus they owe you money):

Memo            Account                       Debit     Credit
------------    -----------------------       --------  --------
Payment to Landlord
                Assets:Checking                          $500.00
                Expenses:Rent                  $100.00
                Assets:Roommate Owes Me        $400.00

Reimbursement from Roommate
                Assets:Checking                          $400.00
                Assets:Roommate Owes Me        $400.00

How to manage shared expenses with double entry

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