Let users indicate when they have entered all expenses for a group
The way that my friends and I have been using Splitwise for the past year and a half is, for any group trip we take, we create a separate Splitwise group for that trip. It's a great workflow and Splitwise has been invaluable to us, but one tweak would make it even better:
We use "simplify debts" to cut down on transactions, and to make that work best, it's best for everyone to wait for every expense from the trip to be added before settling up. The way we've been handling it has just been to have everyone add their expenses within a week of the trip ending, then have sort of a "roll call" in an email thread checking to make sure that everyone has completed adding their expenses, then when we confirm that everyone has added them, then we settle up.
It'd be nice if, instead of having to keep track of this in an email thread, each user in the group had a checkbox or icon next to their name which they could set to indicate "I have added all of my expenses". Then, instead of having to wait for an email all-clear to settle up, I could just look to see that each user has a checkmark and know that the group is ready to settle up.
Thanks for the suggestion! I totally understand this use case – “don’t settle up until I add everything” is something I’ve heard friends of mine say anecdotally. I’ll add this to our list of possible improvements for future versions :)
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Justin DiPietro commented
My friends and I also use this for every trip in the same way! We then have that same text/email chain going around to ask when everyone is done submitting their expenses! This would help a lot!
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Miglmariano commented
For group expenses for a specific Event, setting a due date to post expenses will help provide urgency. By also having a not before date for settling up, we can confirm that all expenses have been loaded and with simplify debts, we can minimize transactions. Often, a party member may settle up but then expenses get added after that and they have to send or receive money again.
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Brett commented
Bar people from settling until the Splitwise group creator, or designee, unlocks the group. This would prevent people from settling before all expenses are entered.
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Mukund Tibrewala commented
When I'm on a trip, it's hard to know when everyone else has finished adding all their expenses. A button like "I'm done adding all my expenses" would make it more clear to know when everyone is ready to settle up.
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Joel H commented
Expenses complete button for a group would be a really useful feature.
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Ali Ganji commented
One of the problems we have had with the app is after group trips and while group owners are still updating the expenses, some of our friends pay and settle their debts.
I think you need to add a new feature that a group has an owner and only the group owner can see the members balances while it is not released. Once, group owner is done with entering cost items and gives the final approval, the group members can receive a notification on their balance or see their balances on the app.
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Ben commented
This would be an excellent feature add that I know our user base would definitely utilize. I hope that this feature will get some attention soon.
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Michael Chaffee commented
So, my friends and I go on a group trip. Naturally we create a Splitwise group, just for that one trip, to enter our shared costs, because Splitwise is excellent ?
So after the trip we get home and go back to work and wait for all the CC charges to post. And then, at some point days or weeks later, someone eventually will text the group saying "does everyone have all their expenses in? Can we settle up?"
It's not a big deal, obviously, but Splitwise would be EVEN MORE EXCELLENT if each member of a group could set/unset a flag indicating whether they had entered all their expenses. Then, once all users indicated that they had entered all their expenses, Splitwise could send a notification to all members of the group indicating that it's time to settle up.
Please feel free to reach out if you like my idea and want more details. And thanks for being excellent!
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Sonali Gupta commented
I am using splitwise app, only problem that i am facing is that people who dont know how to use the app is changing the entry due to which complete data is reflecting wrong.
This feature should be edit by creator or group admin.
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Ben commented
Within each group (of expenses) each user should have a button to declare “ok... I’m done adding expenses for this group”. Once all users in that group have declared this, notifications should then be sent that the group can settle up.
Right now, a separate form of communication (text, WhatsApp, a circling of wagons, whatever...) needs to be used to declare “hey, anyone have any other expenses to add? Or we all good to settle up?” This seems tedious when Splitwise’s entire purpose is to coordinate and centralize group expenses management into a single app.
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Artem Russakovskii commented
Is this ever going to happen? It's a huge shortcoming of the app that should be fairly easy to implement. Everyone I use it with notices and wonders how such a basic feature is still missing.
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Ales Rybak commented
If I create a group for a single purpose (e.g. a trip) then in some moment I would like to say "hey, all expenses are in place, please settle up".
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Anonymous commented
One problem we encounter is that people don't know when they can start settling up (or they start paying before all the expenses are in). To avoid this, give the option within a Group of allowing each person to indicate (or allow someone to indicate for them) "entries completed" or "expenses entered". That way, we know when all the expenses are entered and people can start settling up. Either that or have an indicator on the Group home page that allows someone to indicate "Time to settle up" or "Please wait before settling up".
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Chris Hansen commented
Instead of me texting others to make sure all debts / expenses have been added it would be nice to indicate when each person is “ready to settle up” so there’s less back and forth! Thank you!
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Santo commented
Any update on this feature. Thank you.
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Jurgen Braam commented
Hi guys, any progress on this feature?
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Anonymous commented
Bump! This simple feature would make it so much easier to know when it's time to settle (and who we are waiting on!)
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Tom Birch commented
When using a splitwise group for a holiday, it's often hard to coordinate when everyone has finished submitting their expenses as some people collect receipts and wait till they get home and do it in bulk, or are waiting on credit card statements, etc. It would be great if there was a button I could click to say "I'm done" and that would let everyone know to note expect expenses from me and then when everyone is "done" it's then obvious to everyone in the group that its ok to start sending/requesting payments.
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Anonymous commented
Idea for you guys! Love Splitwise but one thing I've found tricky is how to indicate when everyone's expenses have been added so people can start paying each other back. In many instances, people have started repaying others before all expenses have been added and allocated. I wonder if there's a way to "mark" this or if there's a way to not allow people to repay until everyone has confirmed everything has been added. Just a thought!
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Ashley commented
There should be a way to have a period of time where group members can enter expenses and confirm that the correct group members are included in each expense before transactions are enabled.
Our group had some expenses with errors in which group members were mistakenly included, but folks started transacting before adjustments were made and now we have a mess.
The platform is great in theory, but needs more controls to ensure everything is properly executed.