New in Yerevan: shared costs in drams, dollars and roubles

If you have moved to Yerevan in the last few years, you know the money is in three currencies at once. The landlord wants dollars, or drams at his rate. The restaurant takes drams. Your friends send roubles, or lari, or whatever their bank still works with. Sharing a flat or a dinner means converting, and converting is where people fall out.

One group currency

Pick the dram. It is what you spend in, what the receipts say, and what you will pay each other in at the end. Rent quoted in dollars is still logged in dollars; the group converts it. Balances in drams, settlement in drams.

Log what you actually paid

The mistake is converting in your head before writing anything down. “I paid about 40,000” is not an expense; “I paid $100, and my bank converted it at 388” is. Log the amount and currency from the receipt or the bank app, and let the conversion be a separate, visible step.

The rate: the one your bank used

For a dinner paid in drams there is no rate. For the rent paid in dollars there is, and it should be the rate the payer’s bank actually charged, from the statement, not the one on the news. The difference on a $500 rent at 385 versus 390 is 2,500 drams; over a year of rent it is a dinner. Which exchange rate is fair is our longer argument for this.

Two flatmates, one month

Karen and Olya share a flat. Rent is $500, paid by Karen in dollars; his bank converted at 388, so 194,000 drams, 97,000 each. Olya pays the utilities, 36,000 drams, 18,000 each. A friend from Moscow visits and they take her to dinner; Olya pays 24,000 drams, shared by the two flatmates only, 12,000 each.

Karen paid 194,000 against a share of 127,000: he is owed 67,000. Olya paid 60,000 against 127,000: she owes 67,000. One transfer, in drams, and the month is done. The flatshare rules in general are in splitting rent and bills with roommates.

When the group travels

A weekend in Dilijan with four people, one of whom still pays by a foreign card, is the same method with more lines. Splitting costs on a group trip to Armenia works through a trip in drams with a friend paying in dollars.

How we do it in kisir

kisir is made in Yerevan, and this is the problem it was built around. Each expense is in its own currency: $500 for rent, 24,000 drams for dinner, 3,000 roubles for the thing your friend bought you. kisir fills in the day’s rate and converts to the group’s drams, and the payer can change the rate to the one on their statement. Both figures stay on the expense. The app speaks Armenian, Russian, English and 17 more languages, so a flat with one of each is not a problem, and nobody needs an account.