forums.lyricapps.com

Hello,

I am currently in iCompta's trial period (11 more days to go!) and it seems to be a great app (certainly better than most I've tried). I'm planning on buying it as soon as it ends, but I need to know something before. I've seen some threads about sharing expenses, but I couldn't understand what was the resolution for most of people's problems, so I'll try to put mine in here as best as I can, in the hopes of you being able to help me. What I need from a finance software for my home is two things:

1) My wife and I like to share our expenses equally, so I would like to keep a balance of how much one has been expending more than the other one. iCompta supports this via its "People" feature, which is great.
2) I want to know where we've been spending our money (both as a couple and as individuals). If the solution is buying two licenses and using them separately, that is not a problem as well, as long as it meets our needs. So here's the situation:

We have bills to pay. I pay some, she pays some, pretty standard. So say I pay $200 for utilities and she pays $500 for rent. I see two ways I could put this in iCompta:

1) The first try I had (seemed like the most natural) was this: For my bill, 100% "House" category, 50% "Wife" person. This will make my wife owe me $100, which is perfect. I will obviously get the "Exceeding percentage" message, though, which warns me that my pie charts will be screwed up. And indeed they are, of course.

2) So then I try the second approach: 50% House, 50% Wife. Now she owes me $100, perfect. Then, on the rent, which she pays, we will put 50% House and 50% me. Now I owe her $150 (-$100 + $250), which is correct. Unfortunately, now, if I try to get an expense report on the House category, I will get that we've spent $350 on the House category, which is not true.

Is there a way to make all these numbers make sense? In this scenario, I want to owe my wife $150 and to know that we've spent, together, $700 with our house. Does that make sense?

I appreciate any help anyone can give me on this matter.

Thank you,
Marcelo.

Me again. I have given more thought to this problem, and I guess what I'm saying is this:

iCompta has a perfectly clear way to say how much money I've spent on something (assign categories to a transaction, with a percentage for each category). It also has a clear way to say how much money I've spent on SOMEONE (assign participants to the transaction, with a percentage for each participant).

I guess the problem that arises for me in this case is this: I see no clear way to say that "I owe my wife $250 because of rent". At least I think that's it.

If we think about it, this wouldn't work too well for, say, shared expenses on a trip either.

Suppose I travel with 3 more people. We each pay for dinner for everyone on different days. In the end of our trip, iCompta shows me clearly who owes or is owed, and how much, so that it's easy to settle everything. If I want to know how much our whole party spent on dinners on this trip, though, the amount would not be correct. Since each of us only categorized (for instance) 25% of each meal as "Dinner", the amount of money that was spent on dinners but paid for someone else would be "lost" (I know it's not lost, it's just that there's no easy way to tell how much it was).

This scenario gets even more complicated, I guess, if I pay for dinner and my friend pays for something I buy at a store (because I'm out of cash) and my wife pays for tickets to the Theater, and... I understand this is a hard problem to solve! I just think iCompta seems to already have a way to deal with it and I just don't know how.

Thanks for any help you can give me. And thanks for the software!

I will work on something to make this information appear clearly.

Wow, that sounds great! Thanks!

Also sounds like a lot of work, though. I would be glad to help with anything you need in order to make this work.

Can you think about "person cost centre"
I used "Habil" in Brazil and knew how much I spent and how much she spent for the car category for example.
Who spent more gasoline?
Who has paid more?
Who and how much is spent within each category.
Currently only the Icompta use change and hope with anxiety

http://www.habil.com.br/v6/gratuita/home.asp?id= ( free )

Yes this will be included in version 5.

Hi! O think Icompta is de best for me, but where version 5?

I User's your app more than one year and am very happy. Already tested vairos other, but Icompta is the best.
This small, I do not know how to solve simple or complex, it is very important for the financial control family or small business.
Thank you for the Portuguese version.
Every day I check if you upgrade to the new version.