Alias between Assets and Liabilities?

General
1

Apologies if this has been asked before, I didn't find it, but am on my phone, without the suggestion sudebar.

Is it a good idea to alias an Accounts Payable account name to an Accounts Receivable account, or vice versa? I wonder, because peer accounts (mostly for friends & family) can flop back and forth. Does anyone have a third category for these, instead? Do you have two accounts, and split transactions between them if needed?

[EDIT: maybe the alias makes no sense. I don't know if you can alias a whole path to another whole path.]

2

Two accounts is tedious, so if it’s usually one sign more than the other, I’ll choose the most suitable name and just accept occasional contra-balances. If it’s often changing sign, I might give it a neutral name like assets:due.

1 Like
3

Although it is pretty tedious, I tend to keep both accounts. That's how accounting should work at least.

If it's going to be happen that much often, I'd personally use Equity to track them like this:

2024-01-15 * Friend1 ; Lent money to Friend1
    Assets:Cash                    -50000 KRW
    Equity:OCI:Friend1             50000 KRW

2024-01-20 * Friend1 ; Partial repayment from Friend1
    Assets:Bank:Woori              30000 KRW
    Equity:OCI:Friend1            -30000 KRW

2024-02-01 * Friend1 ; Borrowed money from Friend1
    Assets:Bank:Woori              100000 KRW
    Equity:OCI:Friend1            -100000 KRW

2024-02-15 * Friend1 ; Partial debt repayment to Friend1
    Assets:Cash                    -70000 KRW
    Equity:OCI:Friend1             70000 KRW

I try not to have contra-balances as much as possible and equity(OCI) makes sense in this regard.

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4

PS I meant to also say: aliases means more names to get right and can add confusion; I mostly prefer them for temporary use.

But, your idea might be a good one, why not try ? Yes you can alias a full account name.

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5

I could instead always use an alias for each peer account, and change its definition as appropriate. This could cause historical reports to change or contra-balance, though.

For aliasing one to the other, I assume reports would ignore aliases across account types, so even though it could contra-balance, it would at least be consistent.

I'll try out your suggestions, too. Thanks!