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Accounting for Splitwise transactions on Simplifi

rgonzalez

Hello!

This is a long post so I appreciate anyone who spends the time reading.

I'm having a bit of a crisis with split bills and I'm reaching out to the community to try and crowdsource a solution.

Me and my spouse use Splitwise to keep track of shared expenses in the home. This includes rent payments, utilities, car payments (we downsized to 1 car), auto insurance, shared travel expenses and going out. In theory this seems pretty straightforward: if I pay $100 for our car insurance, I add it to Splitwise and the app notes that I should "get back" $50 from her. If she pays for a $50 dinner, she adds it to Splitwise and it reduces her debt to me to $25. This goes on and on until the end of the month, where we double check that we both added all our transactions and they pay out to the other side if needed. If no other expenses happened, I get a cool $25 from her and we are settled.

The problem is that I can't account for any positive money that I "keep" in my checking account because there are no transactions. In the previous example, I have -$100 for insurance, but I don't have a +$25 transaction from her taking into account the dinner. I just "keep" the $25 in my checking account. That, as I understand it, makes the $50 she owes me whole on my end.

I tried tagging transactions on Simplifi that were listed on Splitwise, then adding the same tag to the transaction she would send if she ended paying me at the end of the month. That made things more confusing. I also came to an agreement with her that transactions over a certain limit should be covered on the spot. I still have problems with how the cash flow tool on Simplifi projects into the future because other transaction are still being recorded on Splitwise.

On top of all of this, I usually pay for things with my credit card to accumulate points then cover the bill at the end of the cycle. I'm sort of fronting large purchases on the card because I'm adding them on Splitwise with no "reimbursement" transaction to speak of. It becomes a huge mess the following month when I have a massive credit card bill, but Simplifi says I was +$600 at the end of the previous month.

I began adding her halves into those "on the spot" transactions on Simplifi by creating new recurring series to see if that can help me "see" on the screen how all this works. I'm still having issues with the Cash Flow tool. Writing this out certainly makes me think this is a "me" problem and not something Simplifi is not built/designed to work out. I tried searching for discussion topics in the community on Splitwise, but the search came back empty.

If anyone wants to try and help to crack this code, I'll be very grateful. I'm more of a visual person and math has never been a strong area for me. If I see that Simplifi is projecting a -$800 cash flow I enter into a panic and start going nuts creating transactions, changing budgets and losing my mind.

Thanks for the help!! 😅

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Comments

DryHeat

I have a half-baked idea (perhaps one-third-baked) that might work for your situation. It's not something I do, though, so I'm not certain how it would play out. It depends on you noticing her entries in Splitwise and mirroring them in Simplifi. Basically, it would work like this using your initial example:

Create a manual bank account in Simplifi and call it SplitwiseBalanced (or whatever).

When you pay $100 for car insurance, split that transaction in Simplifi and on split $50 with category Car Insurance and one split $50 transfer to SplitwiseBalance. (result: you have a $50 positive balance in SplitwiseBalance)

When she pays $50 for dinner and enters that into Splitwise, you create a $25 negative transaction in SplitwiseBalance with category Dining Out (or whatever). (result: you now have a $25 positive balance in SplitwiseBalance.

This way, the balance in the SplitwiseBalance account should always mirror the amount she owes you (or you owe her) in Splitwise. It shows up in Simplifi as money in the imaginary bank that is really her debt to you.

I hope that's clear. If you try it with a couple of transactions it may become clearer.

DryHeat

BTW, you are not alone in handling things this way.

My wife just unearthed an old paper ledger book from 40 years ago where she and I tracked mutual expenses back in the 1980s.

We laughed at some of the things we kept track of, but $20 was a lot of money to us in those days.

rgonzalez

Half-baked bread is still bread so I'll take it. I do keep track of the entries pretty consistently so this may work. I'm curious on how this will all play out within Simplifi. I'm hoping I will be able to track spending better because the SplitwiseBalance account will reflect in my Spending Plan. I'll give it a test drive and see where I land. Thanks!!!

DryHeat

I'm hoping I will be able to track spending better because the SplitwiseBalance account will reflect in my Spending Plan.

Good luck with it.

Just keep in mind that, although transactions in the SplitwiseBalance account will show up in your Spending Plan and Cash Flow, they don't represent money that you actually have. They represent money that you are owed (or owe, depending).