Repayment function - An entry shows the amount you have actually payed
It would be incredibly useful to have the function to add to an entry an amount that has been payed back.
Why?
We all have family, friends etc. with whom we share a bill very often. However, it rarely occurs that a bill is split exactly when it is payed. So you pay the full price knowing that you will get half (or what ever percentage) back from e.g. your partner.
But you only have two options to record this:
(1) you enter an „income“ transaction, describing what the repayment was for
(2) you change the payed amount and note the change (what someone else has payed) in the description
What‘s the problem?
Only the latter one shows the ACTUAL AMOUNT PAYED BY YOU (and actual income amount) and also preserves all information (initial amount, payed amount, partner‘s amount), be it with a bit of mental calculation.
Why not do it this way?
* This only works, if you get each repayment on the associated account! *
If you have several accounts (several cash and several digital) then this does not work because your partner won‘t give you each little repayment separately but in a bulk and I‘d either have to split my cash to the cent and transfer the correct amount to each account or I‘d have to accept to live with
- a huge discrepancy between what I have actually payed vs. what MoneyCoach shows me
- or with a huge discrepancy between the correct amount present on all the accounts vs. what MoneyCoach shows me.
What is desired?
- entries show the actual amount payed (after repayment) !
- no transfers !
- no income entries !
- no loss of information (payed amount and total amount recorded) !
- no cluttered descriptions
The solution?
Give us the option to add to an entry, what another person has payed of the entered amount and if the repayment has not happened on the same account, you could choose the account, on which you have received the repayment.
The app then only shows and calculates with the amount you have paid.
Similar to the entries in accounts with a foreign currency, these entries could show in grey the total amount of the payment. <<
What does it mean?
Basically, this function hides any „income transactions“ and „transfers“ for recording a repayment correctly and makes long descriptions redundant (and also stores more information).
(I know that this is not how MoneyCoach is designed but to also address this: I don’t find it very intuitive to have two entries for each transfer. Great for CSV, but in the GUI unnecessarily confusing.)
This really would be a life changer! :)
Thank you for reading.
PS:
What can I do now, if I want the amount I paid displayed?
1. Use the method (2) described above.
2. Once you have entered the amount your partner payed you back in the description, you make a transfer from the account (from which the transaction had been made) to the account, on which you have gotten the repayment, with the same amount your partner payed you back (if it‘s the same account, this step is not necessary).
The differences to the suggested solution are:
- really annoying because it takes a lot of time
- your transaction feed is CROWDED from transfers
- your descriptions are really long and sometimes cryptic (e.g. when using multiple hashtags)
- it can be really difficult and messy, when you subtract your debt from your partners debt and are using different accounts, cash and digital
- higher risk of making mistakes