expenses and incomes

I deal with this situation from a different perspective. Essentially -

1. negative means money out, positive means money in.
2. The category:sub-category defines whether it is "Expenditure" or "Income".

So in your case:
You pay the rent - that's an expense that incurred.
Flatmates contribute/pay their share - that goes against the category:sub-category as "negative expenditure" and thus reduces my actual expenditure by the appropriate amount.
Net effect - balance paid in the category:sub-category is my share of the rent.

How I handle it:
We get one mobile bill covering the family, and our son pays us his by AP.
So I code his mobile cost to his own category:sub-category (e.g. "Loans & Liabilities:Son's Costs" configured as 'Expense') in the bill, and then his AP entry into our bank account uses the same.
Thus I know by looking at the balance of "Loans & Liabilities:Son's Costs" whether he's behind (he's never ahead ;-} ), and can show him if need be every related transaction.

Hi Lindsay,

I do the same as you do. I realize that the negative expense in my question makes things confusing. I edited my question to clarify.

Indeed, -3000$ + $2000 leaves a balance of -1000$ which is my share. However, running the predefined report (Expense pie chart) will show an expense of -3000$. The only way you will get -1000 is if you run an income and expense table report where the -1000$ will show in the Total column.

Using a liability category could work in the case of the roommates (not for the refund), but you would need to exclude the liability category from your expense report (every time you run it).

Hello both!

I am having the same issues with roomate rents: Categorizing their share payment as income and my payment as expense makes the reports quite unhelpful: My rent shows up as a gigantic portion of my expenses, which does not reflect reality: my rent is quite low, I just happen to be the one who makes the "main" payment. As mentioned by ptoulouse, this issue also affects reimbursements from services, shops, etc...

I don't really understand the reason for not allowing a category like "rent" to have positive values ?

>> I don't really understand the reason for not allowing a category like "rent" to have positive values ?

A category[: sub-cat] *CAN* have positive and negative values.

For any category that's defined as an expense, HomeBank will make the positive amount negative when first entered, but you just go in a second time and delete 'just the "-"' off the amount and it'll accept the positive when you press OK.
Yes, an extra action but I prefer the way it behaves than having to remember to *always* put a minus sign on the front of expense amounts - lots more of those transactions!

For regular 'refunds', I have set up scheduled transactions with the correct/expected -ve (or +ve) amounts coded in them so only have to tweak the odd ones that vary.
***** From rent & other regular refund transactions perspective, I'd expect $s are usually the same every time so no onerous effort req'd to handle the "+ve" coming into the "-ve" expense category[:sub-cat]. A one-time setup is all that's required.

Hope this helps.

PS: I can't remember if the reverse effect (making -ve $s +ve) is true for income defined "cat[:sub-cat]" off the top of my head. Similar approach to $ entry would ensure right sign on $s is recorded.