Thanks to /u/orcusvoyager1hampig for spelling this out to me on reddit
I go out to dinner with a friend and they offer to pay me back later for their meal. I write this in my ledger:
2021-07-19 * "Chipotle" "Dinner w/Dave"
Liabilities:AmEx:Blue -30 USD
Assets:Debts:Dave 15 USD
Expenses:Dining 15 USD
This makes sense to me. Today, I sold something for Dave on ebay. I’m going to reduce what he owes me using that part of the payment:
2021-07-30 * "ebay" "payment"
Assets:Bank 25 USD
Income:Ebay -20 USD ; my stuff
Income:Ebay -5 USD ; Dave's $5 item
Assets:Debts:Dave -5 USD ; ????
This does not balance. As a quick fix, I can remove the Income:Ebay -5 USD and take that from Dave’s debt account directly. However, at the end of the month beancount will report $20 of revenue while ebay’s statement will report the full $25.
Matching these numbers is important to me. What I need to do is:
- Keep a record of Assets:Inventory as an intermediary between Dave’s debt and my other Assets.
- Keep a record of Expenses:COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold) to sink Dave’s transferred inventory into once sold.
Note the additional transaction here:
2021-07-19 * "Chipotle" "Dinner w/Dave"
Liabilities:AmEx:Blue -30 USD
Assets:Debts:Dave 15 USD
Expenses:Dining 15 USD
;
; Dave's debt is officially reduced here:
;
2021-07-30 * "Dave gives me his things to sell"
Assets:Inventory 5 USD
Assets:Debts:Dave
2021-07-30 * "ebay" "payment ; sold $20 of my things and $5 of dave's"
Assets:Bank 25 USD
Income:Ebay -25 USD ; my stuff + Dave's $5 item
Assets:Inventory -5 USD
Expenses:COGS 5 USD
For future debts I will need to determine the price of our asset transaction ($5) after the item is sold.
Quick dose of nostalgia, when googling beancount COGS, a wiki for Toontown is the first result. Fun times.
