Need Advice

I would set up a special cash account and record receipt of cash and bill paying out of the account using a special Quicken class (not a category) that you can exclude from your reports so that these transactions don't affect your 'real' report details.

One idea, I'm sure others will give theirs.

Create a Class for each of them to track your net debt/credit for them. I do this for company business travel purposes and it works nicely for me.

Let me elaborate. Create a class for Loser and CheapBastard (use their real names) and label all purchases you make for them using these classes for each item you bought for them specifically. Then do the same when they give you cash or a check and desposit it. If you accept cash and don't deposit it, create a cash account so you have a place to record the cash as a deposit. Then it's a simple report for each class to see what purchases you've made for each, what cash you've accepted from each, and what your net debt/credit is for each.

Scott

Well here's the way I'd do it...

1. Create an Asset account called Receivables.
2. When you pay a bill for your friend, record it as a Charge to your credit card account and specify "[Receivables]" for the Category/Transfer field. This will record the $ amount paid as a transfer to the Receivables account.
3. When friend reimburses you, record it as an amount "Received" in your Cash account and specify "[Receivables]" as the account from which the money was transferred from.

The square braces [ ] specify a transfer to/from the account specified within the braces.

Basically you increase your receivables when you pay the bill for the other person and you decrease it when you receive their payment. When things are nominal, the balance of your Receivables account is $0.00.

Instead of having a generic "Receivables" account, you could create specific accounts for each of your "clients", as another poster mentioned, and have pinpoint accuracy on their current indebtedness. I don't like to do that because it causes clutter.

You might also wish to teach them basic financial principles and get them to take care of their own affairs - it would be a gift that would last a lifetime...

Hi, Melvin.

Good advice. I concur.

I would just like to emphasize to Sharif that when Friend buys dinner on your card, you do NOT charge that to "Dining Out". For your own accounting purposes, it does not matter what Friend spent the money for. It matters only that he owes you for that amount of money. You do not want to inflate your own expense categories temporarily, and then reduce them when (if) you get repaid. If Friend forgets to repay you, then you have a Bad Debt expense, not a larger Dining Out expense. Also, by using the receivables account, as Melvin advises, you won't forget about the debt and you won't have to comb through your expense categories to find how much Friend owes you. And it will be easy to handle multiple advances and partial repayments.

RC

Hey Melvin,

Thanks for your tip! It's good but I was w> Well here's the way I'd do it...