Splitting Costs (SharedPay)
Money can be a source of friction when traveling with friends, sharing an apartment, or splitting family expenses. The SharedPay container is designed to eliminate the math and make tracking shared costs completely transparent.
How it works
A SharedPay container is like a continuous ledger. You invite your friends or roommates as members, and everyone can add expenses as they happen.
When someone pays for something (e.g., "Dinner at Luigi's", €60), they add it as an Expense. Mottainai instantly calculates who owes whom and keeps a running total of the balances.
Flexible split methods
Not all expenses are split evenly. Mottainai supports five different ways to divide a cost:
- Equally: The default. A €60 bill split among 3 people is €20 each.
- Unequally: Specify exactly who owes what amount (e.g., Alice owes €15, Bob owes €45).
- Percentage: Split by ratios (e.g., Alice pays 30%, Bob pays 70%).
- Shares: Useful for families. A family with 2 kids might take "4 shares" of a cost, while a single person takes "1 share".
- Adjustment: For slight variations, like an equal split except someone had an extra €5 drink.
Settling up
You don't need to pay each other back after every single expense. Mottainai keeps track of the overall balance.
When it's time to pay, Mottainai shows you the simplest way to settle the debts. For example, instead of Alice paying Bob who pays Charlie, Mottainai might just tell Alice to pay Charlie directly.
When someone pays their debt, you log it as a Settlement, and the balances return to zero.
Phantoms (Non-users)
Sometimes you need to split costs with someone who doesn't use Mottainai, like a visiting relative or a child. You can add them to the SharedPay container as a Phantom participant. You can assign expenses to them just like a normal user, and track their balance on their behalf.