I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this: every Splitwise group I create for trips has at least one premature "settle up" before all expenses are added or reviewed for accuracy. Premature payments negate the advantages of simplified debts to reduce transactions per person. My busy group chat today had two separate people ask just hours apart, "should I pay now?" when buried messages said to wait until tomorrow. Simplified debts is such a cool feature, but it's hard to evangelize for that feature or Splitwise as a whole when there are glaring pitfalls into failure. What's the status of this feedback?

This is such a simple feature to add and by far the most frustrating part of Splitwise. I can't believe no one has taken the time to at least add this as an option for a group even if it's not on by default....

The number of times I've introduced someone to Splitwise, the payments get messed up from someone paying before everything is finished, and then the new people never wanting to use it again is insane.

Please, please, please get this done.

BUMP! This is something that should be implemented ASAP. So tired of my friends settling up before all expenses have been entered. Please allow the organizer to “lock” settling up.

BUMP.

where are we at with this? My friends are not the sharpest tools in the shed and they just don't understand how NOT to touch anything before everyone has put their expenses in.

Splitwise for groups is most efficient when people settle up after all expenses have been entered. However, many people don't know this and pay along the way. It would be great if a group organizer had the option of controlling/determining when people in a group can go in and settle up (settle up is locked until then). Once the expenses are all entered, the organizer can go in and press a button to ask people to settle up (which then sends a message to group members to go and do so). In the current method, people pay at random times and they pay to individuals for a particular expense (messing up the simplify debts feature) and people constantly have to ask if its ready to settle...

If someone in the group settles up before the others (happens all the time to us) the balances end up being very confusing.

I would much prefer that the option to settle is disabled untill everyone in the group has notified splitwise....maybe by a ready button or something...that they are ready to settle

Give organizer the ability to block settling up until they unlock it.

This way people don’t start settling up with others until all expenses are in.

Please add an option to freeze a group (no adding/deleting transactions) until everyone has settled!

I've used Splitwise for several large group trips, and nobody seems to understand that it's easiest when the group creator determines when everyone has entered all their expenses and it's ok to settle up. Instead, some people start paying others as soon as the first expenses are entered, and not at the end of the event, which confuses other people, makes them panic, and generally adds to the amount of payments that are made.

A simple flow would be:
1) Give the group creator a flag that is called something like 'I will determine when it's OK for every to settle up'
2) If that flag is set, the app UI would show something like 'Do not settle up yet -- not everyone has entered their expenses!', and
3) When the group creator thinks everyone has entered their expenses, they will hit a button that's something like 'OK to settle up', which sends a notification to everyone's app/email and enables the Paypal/Venmo automation for that group. You should also enforce that payments should be done through Splitwise, else the balance will be off and people will have to enter payments outside of Splitwise manually into Splitwise.

Have a button that each user hits that says they’ve finished adding bills to a group. Make sure anyone has the ability to hit that button for others since some members can be lazy :)

It’s just a pain when you settle up and then one person adds one more bill.

In my recent group, the founder (let's call her Kathy) started up the group and added her bill. Immediately another friend (let's call her Remy) signed up from the invitation and tried to settle up, but had a problem linking splitwise with venmo, so she settled it in venmo independently of splitwise with no log of it in splitwise. Then I added my bills and another friend added a bill, and in the midst of the bill simplification, Remy's debt to Kathy was transferred as debt to me in addition to more. She also sent me money outside of splitwise, but since the amount was different than what I was expecting because of what splitwise was telling me, I was confused. We've talked it out, and settled it all outside of splitwise, and I've had her log a cash payment to me, but this should be avoidable. Either notifications should not go out immediately, or anyone whose debt has been sent out as notification should not be transferred in simplification. This is a not insignificant hole when new users are involved and don't know how this works and how things could change.

I would suggest preventing the ability for people to settle before everyone has entered their bills in. Grey out the box perhaps. Even those that don't have a bill can just mark $0 or something to unlock the box. This will prevent extra unnecessary transactions if someone has already paid out before submitting a bill.

I agree - a "LOCK" on Settling Up is my number 1 feature request/need. Especially with a big group where people have not used this before, it's really frustrating and worrisome to start getting payments before everything is 100% certain and added.

I just paid a host ahead of time and he had to refund until end of weekend and until everyone joined.

Very confusing

hi - the app has really been frustrating me because with every group, it's impossible for people to look at the page or group and know if it's time to settle up/pay. i need a "lock/unlock" feature or "all clear" or something at the top. otherwise people look at it before all expenses are entered and start paying each other, and then it throws off all the future balances.

People started sending payments around before all the expenses have been submitted for a recent group trip. it would be nice to have a flag letting everyone know that they're all it and its time time start sending payments

This way, no one jumps the gun and pay up before everything has been taken into account