While flatAccount.com provides an easy and convenient mechanism for keeping track of your expenses, honesty and trust are still an important and necessary part of any flat.
This section is a collection of hints and tips to help make your flatting experience a good one and to minimise disputes and disagreements. These are not rules you must follow, but simply recommendations that make for good flatting.
Define Personal Expenses
Before you start, come to an agreement over what is classified as a personal expense and what is classified as a communal expense.
For example, should flatmates pay for their own toothpaste and shampoo, or do you share the cost for these items? What about toll calls on your phone bill? And newspapers?
The key is to remove any ambiguity as to what might be a personal expense and what might be a communal expense. By clearly defining this from the start you can prevent disputes and disagreements later.
Who Owes Most Pays
If one flatmate always pays for expenses they will end up with a very large credit (and consequently reasonably large debits for the other flatmates). To prevent some flatmates from accumulating a huge credit and others running up a large debit, you could come to an agreement that whoever owes the most money pays for the next expense.
In other words, when it is time for the weekly grocery shopping, check the current balances on flatAccount.com. The flatmate at the bottom of the list should pay for the groceries. By doing this you can keep things as even as possible.
Shoebox Receipt Collection
There's nothing worse than an unknown expense, or an unusually large grocery bill.
Keep receipts for all expenses in a place where all flatmates can examine them. A shoebox makes a good container in which to store receipts.
Doing this keeps everying out in the open and prevents any nasty surprises. All flatmates have a chance to examine the receipts and raise any issues with the flatmates.
It is also a good idea to indicate any personal expenses on the receipt. A simple way of doing this is by writing the name of the flatmate against each personal expense. For example, if a magazine was purchased with the weekly groceries, write the name of the flatmate whose magazine it is on the receipt next to this item.
