ETOOBUSY 🚀 minimal blogging for the impatient
Beancount for Kitty, simple model
TL;DR
A simple model of a kitty for Beancount.
After laying down the needs in Looking at Beancount, I went for a
direct mapping of the different accounts, setting most of them as Assets
and the External one as an Equity:
2021-01-01 open Assets:Common EUR
2021-01-01 open Assets:Alice EUR
2021-01-01 open Assets:Bob EUR
2021-01-01 open Assets:Carol EUR
2021-01-01 open Equity:External EUR
Now, let’s recap the first transactions, where the three participants do a wire transfer to the common account:
1. External --> Common: 100 EUR
2. Common --> Alice: 100 EUR
3. External --> Common: 90 EUR
4. External --> Common: 120 EUR
5. Common --> Bob: 90 EUR
6. Common --> Carol: 120 EUR
Their mapping to Beancount is straightforward:
2021-01-01 * "wire transfer from Alice, from the bank"
Assets:Common 100 EUR
Equity:External
2021-01-01 * "attribution to Alice"
Assets:Alice 100 EUR
Assets:Common
2021-01-02 * "wire transfer from Bob, from the bank"
Assets:Common 90 EUR
Equity:External
2021-01-02 * "wire transfer from Carol, from the bank"
Assets:Common 120 EUR
Equity:External
2021-01-03 * "attribution to Bob"
Assets:Bob 90 EUR
Assets:Common
2021-01-03 * "attribution to Carol"
Assets:Carol 120 EUR
Assets:Common
Now the expenses directly from the common account:
7. Common --> External: 60 EUR
8. Alice --> Common: 20 EUR
9. Bob --> Common: 20 EUR
10. Carol --> Common: 20 EUR
These can be represented with two records, one related to what comes from the bank statement, the other one for the splitting:
2021-01-20 * "buying something for the group, via the bank"
Assets:Common -60 EUR
Equity:External
2021-01-20 * "splitting the expense"
Assets:Alice -20 EUR
Assets:Bob -20 EUR
Assets:Carol -20 EUR
Assets:Common
Last the direct expense from Alice (let’s stick to the simpler model):
11. Common --> Alice: 30 EUR
12. Alice --> Common: 10 EUR
13. Bob --> Common: 10 EUR
14. Carol --> Common: 10 EUR
This can be addressed in one single recording:
2021-01-27 * "Alice buying something directly"
Assets:Alice 30 EUR
Assets:Alice -10 EUR
Assets:Bob -10 EUR
Assets:Carol -10 EUR
So… let’s see how it goes:
$ bean-report example.bc balances
Assets:Alice 100 EUR
Assets:Bob 60 EUR
Assets:Carol 90 EUR
Assets:Common
Equity:External -250 EUR
Expenses
Income
Liabilities
It’s working, which is fair. I’m not sure it’s the best way to model the whole thing… but it’s surely one!