Guides
Balances and settle-up
How TmCount totals what each person paid and owes, then suggests simple transfers you confirm outside the app.
01
What a balance means
For each member, TmCount totals what they paid and what their shares add up to. The difference is their net position in that group. A positive net means the group owes them. A negative net means they owe the group. These figures are running totals across the expenses, income, and transfers you have logged, not a prediction of future bills.
Balances are a view of the books, not a payment. Nobody is charged when a balance changes. The point is to make “who is in the red” obvious without rebuilding a spreadsheet after every dinner.
02
Suggested transfers
Settle-up suggestions reduce a messy web of debts to a short list of payments. Instead of every person paying every other person, TmCount proposes transfers that clear the same nets with fewer steps. You still choose whether to follow a suggestion. If two people prefer to settle a side debt directly, log a transfer after they do.
Suggestions are a convenience. They can look different after you add or delete an expense, because the underlying nets changed. Recheck the balance tab before you send money, especially at the end of a trip when several people are paying at once.
03
Settling in the real world
TmCount does not send bank transfers. When you agree on an amount, pay with cash, a bank app, or whatever you already use, then record a transfer in the group so the balances move. If you skip that last step, the app will keep showing a debt that you already cleared.
For a personal group with only you, settle-up has nothing to do. There is no second person to pay. Shared groups are where the balance tab earns its keep: housemates splitting rent extras, friends closing out a holiday, or a club collecting for a booking.
04
When a group is finished
After everyone has paid, balances should sit near zero. Archive the group if you do not want it on the home list, but keep it if you still need the history. Duplicating a past trip copies the structure for next time without copying old debts.
If a number looks wrong, check for a missing expense, a member left off a split, or a transfer that was never logged. Fixing the record is safer than sending another payment to “make the app happy.”