The group and my share

Together

The budget of a journal with members is the group's budget. Charts and transaction lists can also show just your part of the spending.

A journal with members keeps the books for a group: a household or a trip. The budget plans the group’s money, and the charts show what the group spent. Once you’ve marked yourself with This is me, you can also see your own share.

The budget is the group’s

When a member pays for something out of their own pocket, that money comes into the group from outside. So Balanced counts it like income: it adds to Ready to assign. It counts as soon as its date has come, cleared or not: a payment from someone’s own pocket never shows up on the group’s bank statement.

Say Anna pays €60 for dinner, and the split is equal between three. Ready to assign grows by €60, and Restaurants has €60 spent. Assign the money to Restaurants, as with any income, and the category is covered.

Payments between members are different. When Bob pays Anna back, money only changes hands inside the group. Ready to assign stays the same, and nothing counts as spent. Spent only ever counts what was spent from categories.

Money also moves between members and the group’s accounts:

Expenses paid from a joint account work as in any journal: the money was already in the group’s account.
Money a member puts into the joint account counts toward Ready to assign too. Money a member takes out of it lowers Ready to assign.
A member paying the card out of their own pocket counts as a repayment, like a payment from the joint account. The card no longer needs the money that was set aside for it, and the member’s money counts toward Ready to assign: so what you’d set aside can go somewhere else. The monthly summaries show the payment as Liability repayment.

Anna pays the card

Liabilities:Credit Card: +100.00
Equity:Anna: −100.00
Balanced: 0.00 ✓

All other rules are the same as in any journal: see Budget formulas. Members don’t count as Equity accounts there: what they pay counts once, by the rules on this page.

Switch between Group, everything the group spent, and My share, only your part of it.
With My share, each category shows your part of what was spent from it.

The switch appears in Charts and at the top of transaction lists, for their monthly summaries, as soon as the journal has members and you’ve marked yourself with This is me. It’s one setting: switch it in one place, and the other follows.

In Charts, the switch is there for Expenses and Cash Flow. Net Worth always shows the group’s.
Only expenses change. Income and Liability repayment stay the group’s.
The budget doesn’t change. It’s always the group’s.

Your share of a category is:

for split expenses, your share of each split. If an expense has several categories, your share is spread over them in proportion to their amounts.
for expenses that aren’t split, your part by default ratio, compared with all members.

An example: Anna and Bob share a household equally. In October, the rent of €1,000 comes from the joint account and isn’t split; Anna’s share is €500. Bob paid €80 for groceries and split it equally; Anna’s share is €40. With My share, Anna sees exactly these amounts: €540 in total, instead of the group’s €1,080.

An expense that’s only one person’s, such as Bob’s new jacket, is best split for Bob alone. Left unsplit, part of it would count as Anna’s share too, by default ratio.

The group and my share

The budget is the group’s

Group or my share