Bought a house -- how to track expenses?
June 23, 2016 6:11 PM Subscribe
We just bought a two-family house (yay) jointly with another family member. How do we most efficiently keep track of the joint expenditures? I *can* make a spreadsheet to track mortgage payments, plumbers, etc., but there's got to be a better way.
I'm looking for some software (for Mac, or alternatively an app, with preference for Android and iOS compatibility) to track joint expenses. Some will be regular recurring payments (mortgage), some will not (hello plumber). There are two households responsible for making payments, with Household A responsible for X% (not half) of the charges and Household B responsible for 1-X%. For the time being Household A will pay most of the costs up front and get reimbursed periodically by B, and we'd like to keep a running tally of how much B owes.
I am not an accountant, though I can certainly make a spreadsheet (or python program, or...) to track everything myself. I'd really rather someone else did the heavy lifting so that it's easy to enter expenditures as they come up as well as keeping track of regular recurring expenses.
The extra complication is that we are renting out one unit for a year, with fixed portions of the rent going to: (1) pay B's share of the mortgage, (2) get saved for B's share of expenses, and (3) pay A for managing the rental.
Software does not have to be free but I'd prefer it to be cheap and not-overkill. Not really interested in personal budgeting software that is focused on keeping expenses within limits -- houses cost what they cost when they cost it.
I'm looking for some software (for Mac, or alternatively an app, with preference for Android and iOS compatibility) to track joint expenses. Some will be regular recurring payments (mortgage), some will not (hello plumber). There are two households responsible for making payments, with Household A responsible for X% (not half) of the charges and Household B responsible for 1-X%. For the time being Household A will pay most of the costs up front and get reimbursed periodically by B, and we'd like to keep a running tally of how much B owes.
I am not an accountant, though I can certainly make a spreadsheet (or python program, or...) to track everything myself. I'd really rather someone else did the heavy lifting so that it's easy to enter expenditures as they come up as well as keeping track of regular recurring expenses.
The extra complication is that we are renting out one unit for a year, with fixed portions of the rent going to: (1) pay B's share of the mortgage, (2) get saved for B's share of expenses, and (3) pay A for managing the rental.
Software does not have to be free but I'd prefer it to be cheap and not-overkill. Not really interested in personal budgeting software that is focused on keeping expenses within limits -- houses cost what they cost when they cost it.
We manage our bills with Chronicle on our Macs. My wife and I can each record our payments from our own machines, and it also has an iOS client, all of which sync through Dropbox (or iCloud too, I believe).
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:40 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:40 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's pretty easy to open an online checking account these days; it may be worth opening a joint account used for house expenses and only use that account (and it's debit card) for house expenses. Then you don't need to worry about tagging personal stuff separate from shared house stuff etc.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:13 AM on June 24, 2016
posted by craven_morhead at 8:13 AM on June 24, 2016
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posted by suedehead at 6:16 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]