Those are two distinct operations and many people deliberately delay reimbursement to give the money more time to grow tax free, so that two transaction method looks ideal to me.
On Wed, Nov 29, 2023, 11:24 Matt Carter <matthew.p.carter...@gmail.com> wrote: > I've been managing my finances with spreadsheets for a few decades. A > couple weeks ago, a coworker introduced me to Beancount and double entry > accounting and I've been pleased with how well it handles my accounts. > > One type of accounting that I haven't yet figured out how to do with > Beancount (or double entry accounting in general) is tracking expenses that > are eligible for withdrawal from a special purpose account like a Health > Savings Account (HSA) or a 529 account. (These are USA tax advantaged > accounts which allow funds to be invested and withdrawals can only be made > tax- and penalty-free for a specific purpose, like health or higher > education. Since funds are invested free of capital gains tax, withdrawals > are often postponed till long after the eligible expense is incurred.) > > I can track my HSA in Beancount as an Assets:HSA account. As I incur > HSA-eligible expenses, what's the best way to track those so that I know I > can later withdraw them from the HSA? Suppose I pay $100 to a doctor for > an office visit. In Beancount, I'd add a transaction that decreases my > Assets:Cash account and increases my Expenses:Health account, each by > $100. But what that fails to capture is that $100 became eligible for > withdrawal from my Assets:HSA account. > > I suppose I could make it work by introducing 2 new accounts: > > 2023-11-29 * "Dr. Hu" "pain killers" > receipt: "http://example.com/2023-11-29_Dr.Hu_meds.pdf"; > Assets:Cash -100.00 USD > Expenses:Health 100.00 USD > Liabilities:HSA-Eligible -100.00 USD > Expenses:HSA-Eligible 100.00 USD > > Then, later, I could withdraw it from the HSA: > > 2035-06-22 * "HSA withdrawal using eligible expenses" > Liabilities:HSA-Eligible 100.00 USD > Assets:HSA -100.00 USD > > But the duplicate Expenses account makes me feel like the model doesn't > fit reality well. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/cc24b99b-905d-476a-8a14-7c58cade7489n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/cc24b99b-905d-476a-8a14-7c58cade7489n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CACGEkZvDeSL14Y3Ox4F3TNLLwMp2npPAjC4UUVTLo4YXPb5jgg%40mail.gmail.com.
