Complicated shared expenses with husband

DianneKayV

I am not new to Quicken, but I am new to having to track shared expenses. My new husband and I have been sharing expenses for a year and a half now. He keeps a complicated spreadsheet record that does NOT transfer to Quicken. Sometimes he pays, sometimes I pay by check or credit card. I would like to have suggestions for setting up account(s) in quicken that shows what we spend overall and what I spend per category and a running total of what we each owe each other. Any ideas?
Thank you!

Frankx

Hi "@DianneKayV",

Since you have some experience with Quicken, you may be familiar with "Tags".  They give you the ability to Tag most transactions and then be able to view and sort those Tags in reports.

Here's an illustration of using tags in an account - where the initials of the person who incurred the expense are the "Tag":


Let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck!

Frankx

DianneKayV

Hello, "@Frankx"

Thanks for your suggestion, but if what I wanted to do were that simple, I would already have my problem solved. I have been using Quicken since 2006, so I am familiar with Tags, reports, etc.

I want to set up accounts that show the TOTAL shared expenses, who paid what, running balance of how much we each owe the other, and for me alone, what was the category of the expenditure. I knw that I will have to use one or more HIDDEN account in order for my husband's share NOT to be added to my spending charts. This also means that I would have to link the accounts via "transfers" so that updating one account would update the others.

I really don't want to have to run a report, not even a saved one, each time. I want to

As I said, I want it to do something complicated. LOL

I may eventually figure out this problem myself, but I thought that perhaps someone else in the community with more accounting experience would have a suggestion.

Thanks though for your response.
Dianne

Sherlock

A spouse cash account should suffice.  What your spouse is supposed to pay, deposit in the cash account.  What you're suppose to pay, withdraw from the account.  When your spouse actually pays, transfer from the cash account.  When you actually pay, transfer to the cash account.  A positive balance of the cash account is the amount your spouse owes to you and a negative balance is the amount you owe to your spouse.

Example:   You share a purchase of an $100 item and you pay for with a credit card. You would enter a $100 transaction credit card register and a deposit of $50 in the cash register.  When your spouse pays you what he owes, you enter a transfer for the amount from the cash register to the register you deposit the funds in.

NotACPA

My wife and I, for the most part, have separate credit cards and we DO have separate checking accounts.

SO, what I do, at the beginning of each month for the prior month, is run a report of all EXPENSES for that prior month, sorted by category.  I verify that each transaction is recorded properly and that there are no "Uncategorized" transactions.

When that's done, I FLIP the report to total by ACCOUNT from which the expense was paid.

That report goes into a spreadsheet that I created that has a line for each Q account and the spreadsheet calculates the Grand Total (verified vs. the Q report) and subtotals by whose account it was paid from.

Then, the Grand Total is split into 2 and the sum of each of our expenses is compared to that 1/2 of the Grand Total to determine which one of us owes the other so that each of us has paid 50%

Frankx

Hi again @DianneKayV,

Okay, so I can do complicated... (just ask my wife)

But I have an additional question - do you currently, or would you like this solution to, track both your and your husband's finances in one place (Quicken), or would this solution track only those transactions of your husband that are "shared" in some way with you?

Let me know.
Frankx

markus1957

You might consider tracking incoming contributions to a joint account meant for shared expenses rather than get caught up tracking the nickels and dimes of the expenses themselves.  It's a lot easier to track a few incoming expenses and adjust the individual periodic contributions needed to keep the account cash flow positive.  This approach also preserves the built-in functions of Quicken for tracking budgets, cash flow and taxes (if you file jointly).

Significant expenses attributed to an individual should be paid from the individual's account.

DianneKayV

Hi again, @Frankx

Lol Good to know that you can do complicated. My husband says I (emphasis on I) tend to make things complicated.

For now, I want to track only our shared expenses, see how much we are spending together, see where we are spending (categories) and be able to see how my share affects my cash flow in total and by category.

Also currently, there are some expenditures that my husband pays for at the time, but I need to reimburse him for it at the end of the month. (This is because he is the one going to the house that was my former home paying for workmen to repair it and otherwise get it ready to sell & other maintenance.)

Thanks again for your help.
Dianne

aslot123

@DianneKayV where did you net out on this? What solution did you land on? Does it work well for you?