Say your friend forgets his wallet so you buy his lunch for him. It would be a nice to then tap on that transaction to request that friend pays you back. I.e. Like bill splitting but for the whole amount. Whether they are a Monzo user or not.
E.g.
I buy a friend their lunch at pret £7
In the transaction, under the option to ‘split this bill’ could be another option to ‘ask a friend to pay you back’
Then you can select one friend from either a list of Monzo friends or crucially a non Monzo friend (where it will then send a monzo.me link to request the money)
If bill splitting allowed you to select the whole amount just for your friend and 0 for you, and allows you to select a non-monzo friend without first having to select a Monzo friend then maybe that will have the same effect.
Update: UX clutter is important to keep to a minimum so actually tweaking the ‘split bill’ option to allow non-monzo users and 0 amount for your share would be a better way to achieve this.
Another point to this is that the budget is corrected to show you have £7 to spend again in the ‘eating out’ category once you have been paid back. (Which I think bill splitting does already) If you are only paid back using bank transfer or Monzo.me outside of this transaction then you have your money back but your budget still shows as being £7 less to spend in that category. (This can be worked around also by hiding it from the budget)
I can see what you are saying, but I can’t help but feel that this solution already exists… a good old fashioned bank transfer (or even like you said, Monzo.me).
Too many toggles and niche use cases would make the app even more complex (something I know Monzo are working on trying to streamline).
I’d personally say that this would fall into the “nice as an option, but possibly just a duplicate of existing functionality”.
But maybe others would also find a use for it, and I just need to get more friends!!
@nickh: fair point, too many options is bad UX and streamlining is important. This is why I mentioned tweaking the ‘Split Bill’ option as maybe a better option to achieve what i wanted.
One key thing I didn’t mention about this was that it should adjust your balance accordinglywhen you are paid back so it shows you still have that £7 to spend in the ‘eating out’ category. (Which I think bill splitting does, though please someone correct me if I’m wrong). If someone just pays you back via bank transfer, via monzo app or monzo.me then you have the money back but your budget still shows as being £7 down
On iOS, I can already do this. When splitting the bill, I tap the amounts to alter them. I then enter the full amount in the friends box. Not sure if the same can be done on Android.
