How should short-term friendly loans be accounted for?

[iffy]

Say I loan $10 to a friend (and record a -10 transaction). Then they pay me back next month. How do I categorize both of those transactions?

[shanep2300]

I would make a separate account for something like this, especially if it's more money/more people. Something this low/one person, I wouldn't worry about it too much to record it.

Either way, the transaction would be a negative amount in that account from the bucket I took the money from.

[Limezy]

On my side I have a "friends loans" bucket. I record both loans and refund transactions in it.
If that bucket is not at 0, then I easily know someone owes me something (or reverse way)

[Mpic]

On my side I have a "friends loans" bucket. I record both loans and refund transactions in it.
If that bucket is not at 0, then I easily know someone owes me something (or reverse way)

I like the bucket solution, because then it's easy to combine with split transactions (typical example : shared food expense or gift paid by me, friends contribute and refund later -> I can classify my share in the corresponding bucket and the rest in a "Friends loan" bucket).

The only problem is that buckets cannot be off-budget for the moment, so the friends part awaiting refund is counted as a personal expense and the refund is counted as a personal income, which I really don't like (that renders "Income" and "Expenses" unuseful to me).

[ctheune]

I've been doing it both ways in YNAB and I personally prefer the on-budget way as it means less fiddling and less "fake" transactions. If you get under financial pressure (and I think Buckets handles indicating this properly) then you your outstanding friendly loans (or expenditures) indicate a higher priority of getting that money back IMHO.