Labs Feedback: Bill Splitting 📝

[Themainey (Demaine)]

Just came to see if this had been reported. Tried it three times and crashed each time. Reverted to Monzo.me for the moment.

[robinb (Robin Bilgil)]

Hi all, thanks so much for the great feedback so far. To give you an update, we are considering how to make this work with non-monzo users right now. Without giving any guarantees about whether and when it will make it into the wider release, we have some designs and engineering work in place to make progress. Getting this to work smoothly from Monzo to Monzo is definitely our priority as the experience that’s possible to achieve is vastly superior, but it’s understandable to want an escape hatch when someone isn’t on Monzo and you’d still like to send a request as part of a bill split.

In response to the two bugs I’ve seen reported:

• It’s true that incoming payments as part of a bill split don’t offset your “Spent Today” value on the home screen. I’ve raised this with the relevant team, but unfortunately don’t have a time-frame on a fix. For actual spending budgeting I’d recommend using “Summary” for now as the total spending value is correct on that screen.
• As for the crash when splitting bank transfers; this is something we’re aware of that should be fixed in the next iOS release!

[robboadam (Adam Robertson)]

@robinb

For actual spending budgeting I’d recommend using “Summary” for now as the total spending value is correct on that screen.

Does this include the Summary circle as well? I’ve had this issue where people pay me back for things, and although the ‘left to spend’ figure is correct, the circle is all over the place as it thinks I’ve spent more than I have.

[michaelw90 (Michael)]

I think a good interim would be able to select a payment that has already come in & associate it with a bill split!

[robinb (Robin Bilgil)]

The dial should update to reflect incoming payments against your spending as long the incoming payment is categorised. So you’ll need to select a category for the incoming payment other than “General”. Then summary shouldn’t think you’re overspending. Hope that works!

[robboadam (Adam Robertson)]

Thanks Robin - sorry, just to clarify, is that for bank transfers too, or just M2M payments?

[EdinaF (Edina Farkas)]

It would be really handy to mark incoming payments as bill splitting. You can’t always trust other people to go through sending money your way.

[robinb (Robin Bilgil)]

@robboadam You’re right, bank transfers are treated as income rather than positive spending right now. I confess I don’t actually know why that decision was put in place, and we have seen various requests for changing it. I will try and find out and keep you updated here if we decide to change that behaviour for bank transfers (specifically this would only apply to faster payments).

[Jackcrwhitney (Jack)]

It would be great if it did, people often pay me back via FPS and it would be nice if it credited the relevant category.

[Jackcrwhitney (Jack)]

I’ve been using the feature with my partner while we’re in Spain and we both find it great, well done Monzo!

A few points we’ve thought of so far (some have been mentioned by others before):

• There doesn’t appear to be a way to cancel a request for payment, maybe it was made in error or the wrong amount entered.

• Splitting multiple transactions at the end of the day takes time. It would be beneficial if multiple transactions could be done at once.

• How do these show up on bank statements? Do they show it’s linked to the underlying transaction? It would be a + if they do.

• When the request comes through and you get the option to accept/decline clicking on the linked transaction doesn’t show anything. Maybe the original transaction/merchant could be shown? (Date/time, merchant location etc).
  I think it’s the same once it’s accepted and hits the feed.
  

• Being able to add a note when splitting a transaction would be beneficial, it would then appear in the accept / decline screen for each user + in the transaction notes.

• Just a thought but could the ability to edit the amount on the accept / decline screen be of any use to someone?

[redshift]

I quite like the idea of the option to just request money linked to a transaction and have them sort out the amount they owe. I ain’t calculating how much everyone owes me.

[gordonjb]

Any idea when we can expect to see this in Android labs?

[DanHa (Dan)]

With regard to bill splitting and none Monzo users, why couldn’t you merge the Monzo.me site with the new bill splitting, you could send the none Monzo users a link with a unique code in the query string hat would identify them and the transaction so when they paid it would associate it correctly; for example https://monzo.me/username/10.52/quidjfhe1111/
If hat makes sense?

[BristolMatt (Matt C)]

Not sure if this has been covered already. Just trying this with my partner on a £3.75 transaction. It has split it so that we are paying £1.88 each, which adds up to £3.76…

[BristolMatt (Matt C)]

Is it possible to add a notes field when splitting the bill? It might be obvious sometimes what something is for, but if for example I am doing a Sainsbury’s shop and want my partner to know that it is “stuff for dinner” or “wine” or something, I can’t do that currently.

Edit - or even just pulling in the text from the existing notes field attached to the transaction could work.

Also:

• What is the lowest amount that can be split? I notice that my transaction from £1 isn’t displaying the option to split.
• Would it be possible to have the option to attach a receipt to the payment request?

[Matt1802 (Matt)]

Oddly enough, I seem to have bill splitting on my OnePlus 6 . I get that the engineers are still testing but my Monzo.me has vanished. Thinking I might just have it early, I tried it and the next button just says ‘hi’ to me. Funny, but doesn’t help trying to split cinema ticket costs!

[anon75875116]

Same for me on iOS.

[nexusmaniac (Marcus, Backend Engineer 🛠️)]

const-string v0, "hi"

Looks like it’s hardcoded in the app to merely say “hi”

I’ll keep an eye out on this file (in the decompiled APK) and see if it changes in this week’s beta update

[Abonbon (Alex)]

I don’t like how this does not support non-monzo users. If I pay for a large bill it takes the whole amount from my monthly budget even though I’m then being paid back by friends. If you can’t support the connected payment there should at least be a way - in app - to select received money and mark it as a credit for previous spending so that my budgeting isn’t all messed up as a result.

[Anilm3]

I opened a bug about this because I’m having the same problem:

[Android] Payments assigned to category aren't reflected on budget

Issue: When I receive a payment on my account and assign it to a specific category, the spent amount for the category and the entire budget is never adjusted. When someone pays money into my account I want to adjust the specific category because then the budget goes out of whack. Details to reproduce: Just send a payment to your monzo account and assign it to a category, the amount spent for that category won’t be adjusted. OS: Android Device: Note 9 App Version: 2.13.1 Screenshots:

I also made some suggestions to improve the budgeting tool, especially on bill splitting situations:

Real-World Budget Use Cases

I’ve been using the budget feature to try and have a better understanding and control over my spending lately, and it’s really great. I’ve noticed that there are some use cases which are currently not supported and some others which could be improved in order to ensure the accuracy of the budgeting tool. In my case, most of the problems I’ve been having are related to splitting bills with non-monzo users, although maybe they apply to monzo users too, but I haven’t had the chance to use any form…

Maybe if we make some noise we can get some improvements on the budgeting tool, but I guess it isn’t the most popular feature.