Managing joint accounts in PocketSmith

There are several ways to manage joint accounts in PocketSmith. How this is achieved within PocketSmith depends on your circumstances and personal preference!

A few key things to consider are:

• Whether you want to share access to your PocketSmith account with the other joint account holder
• The impact of the joint accounts on your net worth
• If you want distinct budgets
• Whether the other joint account holder's personal accounts will also be tracked

Background

This guide is perfect for those who love keeping tabs on their personal and joint accounts.  

For the Net Worth and Budgeting impact sections, we have assumed that the ownership of the joint accounts is 50:50 and that you are seeking a way to track only your share of the joint accounts. This is a generalization, and we appreciate this will not be the case for everyone. 💡

We definitely understand that some of our users will prefer a more relaxed approach.  🏖️ No worries! If you're not phased by 'who-owns-what' and 'who-owes-who' with your other joint account holder, then you can simply go ahead and add your personal and joint accounts to your PocketSmith account and let the magic happen. The 'Shared access' section below will be of relevance for you. 

Joint account setups can be as unique as our users. The ideal setup for you will ultimately depend on your case's unique needs and dynamics.🎢

Shared access

Using PocketSmith with others is easy with our Collaborators feature, which lets you share access without sharing your login details on the web app. ✨

This is suitable if you want someone else to be able to see and help manage all the data in your PocketSmith account. Great for those who share everything with the other joint account holder.

For details on setting up Collaborators, see this guide: Shared access on your PocketSmith account.

Adding another set of credentials

If you're managing everything together as a team, you may want to add both your personal accounts and the other joint account holder's personal accounts to a single PocketSmith account.

If your personal accounts are both with the same bank, you'll be adding accounts from the same bank but with different credentials for a bank feed (i.e., different login details). Our guide will step you through this here: Adding more than one set of credentials to an existing bank feed.

Net Worth Impact

When adding a joint account to PocketSmith, the account's total balance is shown throughout PocketSmith, as if you are the sole owner. This is suitable for those managing the accounts as a team, but what if you want to monitor just what is yours? 

The ability to split ownership of an account so that, for example, only 50% of a joint account balance is displayed as the account's total balance in PocketSmith is not possible.

There are a couple of options available, depending on whether you want to track the account as a bank feed.

Option 1 - tracking a joint account with a bank feed

Tracking a joint account with a bank feed is useful if you want to monitor the account's transactions.

What to do if the joint account is overstating your net worth

If you add a joint account with a positive balance, this will increase your net worth by the account's total balance.

To counter this, you could add a debt for 50% of the account balance so that your overall net worth is correct. See: Adding a debt to Net Worth.

For example, if your Joint Bank Account balance has a positive balance of $3,000 then you can add a debt for ($1,500).

As the joint account balance fluctuates, you will need to regularly update the debt amount to accurately reflect changes in the account balance. Just head to the Calendar and follow our guide here: Updating the value of an asset or debt from the Calendar page.

What to do if the joint account is understating your net worth

If you add a joint account with a negative balance, this will decrease your net worth by the account's total balance.

To counter this, you could add an asset for 50% of the account balance to correct your overall net worth, as shown in this guide: Adding an asset to Net Worth.

For example, if your Joint Bank Account balance has a negative balance of ($4,000) then you can add an asset for $2,000.

As the joint account balance fluctuates, you will need to regularly update the asset value to accurately reflect changes in the account balance. Just head to the Calendar and follow our guide here: Updating the value of an asset or debt from the Calendar page.

Option 2 - tracking a joint account using an asset or debt

Instead of adding the joint account as a feed account, you could track it as an asset or a debt instead. This option is great if you do not want to track the transactions within the account.

This way, you can simply set the balance of the joint account to your share of the ownership.

For example, if your joint account contains $2,000, you could add an asset for $1,000 and name it Joint account balance (my share), for example. To keep things simple, you can set the 'Original value and purchase date' to today's date, and so the 'Current value' will be the same amount.

This will need to be regularly updated to accurately reflect your net worth.

Budgeting impact

If you are managing the accounts as a collective, then your budgeting needs can be met by our other Learn Centre Guides, such as Tips and tricks for creating budgets in PocketSmith.

For those who want the budget to reflect what they need to contribute, we can recommend two approaches.

Budgeting for the whole expense and treating money received as income

If you make whole payments for shared expenses, you should budget for 100% of the expense. This ensures you can budget for the full balance needed within your account. 💸

However, as you also receive income from your partner, this extra income offsets the expenses you paid. When viewing your account forecasts, the additional expenses will be balanced out by the additional income 📈📉. As such, you may want to create a new category, such as 'Partner's Contribution', and set an income budget for it equal to the regular repayment you expect from your partner.

Budgeting for half the expense and treating money received as a reimbursement

If you would prefer, you can budget only for your share of the expense. When viewing your account forecasts, only your 50% share of the expenses will be included.

For example, if you have a shared expense category, such as electricity ⚡, and the average monthly expense is $400. You would create a monthly repeating budget of $200, assuming a 50% share of the electricity bill.

Then make sure the Category Type for the Electricity category you're assigning the transactions to is set to No, this is an expense category (any income is a refund).

You can then assign the original $400 payment transaction and the $200 reimbursement transaction from your partner to the same Category. This way, any reimbursement from your partner towards the expense will be subtracted from the expense total in that Category. ✨

Setting up distinct budgets

If you are looking to create distinct budgets for joint and personal expenses, you may want to consider using parent/subcategories. You can find more about this here: Sub-categories and nesting.

With this, you could arrange your Categories to reflect the purpose they serve, and have entirely separate budgets for each sub-category.

Example below:

To set up your categories in a similar way:

1. Head to the Categories (Manage > Categories) page
2. Create any new categories you need: Adding new categories
3. Restructure the categories as needed: Change the category order

Viewing joint and personal accounts separately

A number of areas of PocketSmith, such as the Budget page, will show you your combined earnings and spending for all of your accounts/categories you have added to PocketSmith.

To help keep your personal and joint finances separate, we have some tips below!

Using the Dashboard

You could set up two 'Dashboards' - one showing personal and one for joint. You can find more on this feature here: Using your customizable Dashboard.

You can customise and configure the widgets shown on each Dashboard to reflect only your joint or personal accounts and categories.

You can find more on the different ways to customise your widgets here: Configuring individual widget settings. A great one worth checking out is the Earning & spending widget.

Using the Income and Expense Statement

You can also use our Income & Expense statement side navigation bar to select only certain accounts to analyse.

You can find out more about this here: Selecting the account you'd like to view.

Need more help

If you'd like to see some examples of joint account setups, you can head over to our Learn Centre Guide: Managing Joint Accounts Examples.

If you have a joint account setup question not covered by the above, please feel free to get in touch with us. We'd be happy to see if we have something suitable to suggest.

When reaching out, include details such as:

• Is ownership of these accounts 50/50 in terms of balance and transactions, or is it a different split?
• Does the other bank account owner repay their portion of their spending into the account as one lump sum or as individual transactions (e.g., single transactions to pay their share of power, rent/mortgage, etc.)?
• Will you link the other joint account holder's personal accounts into this PocketSmith account too?