Family/Couples' account
When I was using Billmonk a few years ago, my wife and I started out with separate accounts, but since we share finances, often times we'd be repaying debts for one another (since we have the same friends) and it got confusing. My solution was to just turn my account into "Joe&Jane Smith" and have all our expenses go through one account and removed her account completely.
I'm not sure the ideal implementation for this situation. Perhaps a "family account." Perhaps the ability to add multiple email addresses would work (but unlike a previous feature request, this application would be such that a family could share an account under different members' email addresses). Then if people tried to add the husband or wife as a friend via email address, it'd add the "family account" instead and work accordingly.
Daniel
shared this idea
Splitwise has some basic support for this now, depending on what you’re looking for. We now support multiple email addresses for a single account, so you can more easily share one account with multiple people.
However, we won’t automatically adjust how much you should owe as a “couple”. For example, if “Bob” adds an expense with “Sue and John’s Couple Account”, then the bill will be split 50/50 between those two Splitwise accounts. I can definitely see how it would be useful to automatically make Sue and John pay for 2 shares, but we’re unlikely to add that feature in the near future. For now, you can still work around this by manually using the “Split by shares” option when adding a bill, and assigning 2 shares to the relevant account.
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Elias Bouquillon
commented
I'm curious if the best implementation would be to have a different option when recording bills and payments. For example, if I need to record a payment made by a couple, I can say that Joe and Sue paid me and it would uncheck Joe and Sue for me and automatically reports the payment to each person equally until one reaches Zero and the remainder goes to the partner until they are both at Zero.
This would allow each person the ability to have separate IOUs and accounts, but it would make it easier to report things that they do share.
In the end, this is essentially what I'm doing in one of my groups where my sister and her husband pay shares towards our Family Plan phone bill. I need to keep them separate in case one goes over his or her limit. It is also helpful for being able to keep records of what features were added or removed from specific lines, etc. . .
Basically, having distinct individuals who can "flock together" feels like a more elegant solution that just shoving two people into one Splitwise account.
Just my two cents on the matter. Thank you!
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Erin
commented
We experience the same issues, but in reality, my husband and I do need separate accounts. It would be great to link accounts, and allow re-payment from multiple accounts. Husband and Wife repays Brother, etc.
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Hugo Vacher
commented
Adding the possibility to define a default share per user would be a good start, but for me the good and classy solution would be to add the possibility to share money between two users, then when using the dept simplifying system, the two users would be considered as one.
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Anonymous
commented
Sometimes we do things as families (trips etc) so we need to account and settle by a family rather than an individual, and keep all adults in the family informed. Family could consist of a few individuals. Expenses or payments recorded against a family should appear on each member's account, but counted only once (may be called out separately as a family expense or payment).