What is MoneyBox ?
 
The whole idea of MoneyBox is to simplify and automate the sharing of expenses among a group of people. You can use it for any expense sharing such as sharing house bills, organising a party, sharing holiday or travel expenses, etc.

MoneyBox does all the calculations for you and reduces the number of payments to the minimum possible. 

It gives you a continuous balance for each person and tells you who owes money to whom to solve all the balances.

Use it as often as you like to find out whose turn it is to pay for the bill...

Trying MoneyBox
 
You can download and try MoneyBox for free at http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=5773

This trial version only allows you to create up to 4 users or families and removes data when quitting.

When you register MoneyBox, you receive a code, which letÆs you create up to 16 users or families.

You can register at http://store.yahoo.com/pilotgearsw/moneybox.html

Simply type in the code when you start MoneyBox up. You will now have access to the full MoneyBox functionality forever.

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Using MoneyBox

The MoneyBox user interface is very simple to use. It is composed of five screens between which you can navigate using the arrow buttons, leftarrow.jpg (877 bytes) and rightarrow.jpg (876 bytes). Each screen is described below:
 
The Persons Screen

The first thing you will need to do when using MoneyBox is to set up the different people who will share the expenses. It is even possible to manage expenses for a couple or a family by allocating a coefficient representing the number of people. In this example, Jane and Tim have a joint account and are represented as one person named 'Jane Tim' and with a coefficient of 2.

You can add new people at anytime, even if some payments have already been inserted. You can also modify a person's name or coefficient at anytime.

Note: Deleting a person from the list removes the person from all groups and also removes all payments made by this person.

Pressing rightarrow.jpg (876 bytes) brings you to the Groups Screen.

persons.gif (1312 bytes)
The Groups Screen

In MoneyBox, a payment is represented by an amount paid by one person for a group of people. A group can be composed of two or more people. MoneyBox divides the payment by the number of coefficients in the group and distributes the debts to each person. A new group must be created the first time a set of people share an expense.

Simply select a person's name from the Not In Group List to add it to the group.
Simply select a person's name from the In Group List to remove it from the group.

It is possible to add new groups at anytime, even if some payments have already been inserted. It is also possible to modify a group name at anytime.

Note: Deleting a group removes all payments made for this group. Similarly, removing a person from a group removes all payments made by this person for the group.

Pressing leftarrow.jpg (877 bytes) brings you back to the Persons Screen.
Pressing rightarrow.jpg (876 bytes) brings you to the Payments Screen.

groups.gif (1487 bytes)
The Payments Screen

To enter a payment, select a group, select the person who has paid in this group, enter the amount and press New. If you want to modify a payment's group, person or, make the change and then press the Update button.

In this example, the selected payment shows that Helen has paid 150 for the Singles group.

Pressing leftarrow.jpg (877 bytes) brings you back to the Groups Screen.
Pressing rightarrow.jpg (876 bytes) brings you to the Debts Screen.

payments.gif (1592 bytes)
The Debts Screen

MoneyBox distributes all the payments among the different groups to generate individual debts. In the previous example, Helen has paid 150 for the Singles group. For this single payment, MoneyBox generates a debt of 50 from Richard to Helen and another debt of 50 from Jack to Helen. Jack has paid 50 for the boys which generates a debt of 25 from Richard to Jack. Jane Tim (with a coefficient of 2) has paid 500 for All. This generates a debt of 100 from Helen to Jane Tim, a debt of 100 from Jack to Jane Tim and a debt of 100 from Richard to Jane Tim.

After all the calculations are completed, only Richard and Jack have debts. Richard owes 175 to Jane Tim and Jack owes 125 to Jane Tim. It couldn't be more simple !

Pressing leftarrow.jpg (877 bytes) brings you back to the Payments Screen.
Pressing rightarrow.jpg (876 bytes) brings you to the Balances Screen.

debts.gif (1025 bytes)
The Balances Screen

The balances screen summarises who owes money and who is owed money.

In this example, Helen isn't owed any money and doesn't owe any money. Richard and Jack owe money while Jane Tim are owed money. The total of all the balances is always 0.
In this example, it would make sense for Richard and Jack to pay for the next bills...

Pressing leftarrow.jpg (877 bytes) brings you back to the Debts Screen.

balances.gif (1032 bytes)