A savings circle is saving as a group: everyone puts in the same amount each month and, each month, one person receives what the others paid. Macuta organises, reminds and keeps track of who paid; it never touches the money. Open it in More › Tools › Savings circle (on a computer, under Tools in the sidebar).
The wheel
The wheel shows the people in the order of receiving, with an arc for the turns already gone. In the centre you see how much each person receives and, if you already have a place, when your turn is. Whoever receives doesn't pay that month: with 5 people at 10,000 Kz, each one receives 40,000 Kz.
The rules
- Monthly only: each turn is the whole month, and each person pays when they can that month, for example when they get their salary. Payment is due by the last day of the turn.
- From 2 to 12 people, on every plan.
- One country per savings circle: the currency and the means of payment are that country's.
- On the Copper plan, you create 1 active savings circle at a time; on Silver and Gold (and during the 14 days of free Gold), as many as you want. Joining someone else's savings circle is always free and doesn't count towards this limit.
Create
- Creating a savings circle needs an account. In Create, you type the name, the country and the Amount per person, pick the First month and add the people by name. Also write your name, as the group will see it; it starts filled in with your profile name.
- The order of the list is the order of receiving. Tap two people on the wheel to swap them, or drag in the list.
- When you create it, Macuta generates the link and the group word, for example manga-sol-47.
The group word and the link
The link alone opens nothing: without the right word, no names or dates can be seen. So send the link to the group and tell them the word separately, in a call or in person. Share the link writes the invitation with the link, without the word; tapping the word copies it with the savings circle's name, without the link. Only the organiser sees the word and shares the link. After several wrong attempts, you have to wait a few minutes.
Join
- Open the link, type the word and, under Which one are you?, tap your name.
- The organiser confirms or refuses each person under Waiting for your confirmation; whoever is refused leaves the place free. Until you are confirmed, you see the calendar, but not the details to pay.
- You can join without an account: the place stays only on that device and you get no reminders. If you later sign in to an account on that device, the place moves to it.
- With an account, the savings circle follows you to your other devices.
The agreement
A new savings circle stays in preparation until everyone accepts: nobody pays and there are no reminders. The card shows how many have accepted, the amount per month, the months and how much each person receives. Each confirmed person taps I accept. For a place nobody has taken, the organiser taps Confirm, and Confirmed by the organiser stays visible. When everyone accepts, the savings circle starts.
Until it starts, the organiser can Remove a person, if there are more than 2 in the group, and the calendar is recalculated. Removing someone, drawing or swapping the order makes everyone accept again. After it starts, the name, the amount and the number of people can no longer change.
The draw
In preparation, the organiser can tap Draw the order, and then Draw again. The draw is done on the server; each member's app redoes the calculation and confirms the result, and everyone sees how many draws were made. If the order is changed by hand after that, the page says The order was changed after the draw.
Change the order
- Before it starts: the organiser taps Change the order and two people on the wheel. The swap happens right away.
- After it starts: the swap is a proposal. Only turns that haven't come yet count, in the current round and with no payments marked; the dates don't change.
- The proposal applies when all the people affected accept. Any of them, or the organiser, can refuse, and the proposal is dropped. For a place nobody has taken, the organiser uses Accept for. There is only one proposal at a time.
It's me: your place on another device
If you joined without an account and changed devices, open the link, type the word and tap your name, below Already in this group on another device, without an account? The organiser accepts or refuses, and the request expires after a day. If accepted, the place moves to the new device (or to your account, if you have signed in to one), the old device loses access and your payment details stay.
Payment details
In My place, How I want to receive, you choose IBAN (in the countries that use it), Phone number, Email or Other (for example, in cash, at the office). The app checks the IBAN, the phone and the email before saving them. Only you add, change or remove your details.
They are encrypted: the server can't read them. Only the organiser and confirmed people see them, and only from 10 days before your turn until 7 days after it ends. Whoever pays taps them to copy them and paste them into their bank or wallet app. They are deleted when the savings circle ends; the rest is deleted 60 days later.
If whoever receives added or changed their details less than 7 days ago, or if the place moved to another device, this warning appears: Check with that person before paying. Talk to them before you send the money.
Pay and mark
- The turn's card says who receives, how much you pay and by when.
- After you pay, tap I’ve paid; it shows Paid · waiting for confirmation. Whoever receives taps Received; it shows Paid and received. The organiser can mark for anyone, and Undo removes the mark.
- If the previous turn was left unpaid, the section Still to pay to (name), from last turn appears, where you can still mark it.
- In the list of who pays, already received, still owes shows how much those who have already received in this round still have to pay, counting the turns still to come.
- With an account and a confirmed place, you get reminders without names or amounts: at the start of the turn and 5 days before it ends, if you haven't paid yet; and at the start of your turn to receive. The organiser also has Remind on WhatsApp, with who is still to pay.
The log
The organiser and confirmed people see the last 20 changes in the Log, with the date: the draw, who accepted, the order, the proposals, the people and the places, the details to receive added or changed (without the details) and the new links.
One more round, new link and leave
- One more round: after it starts, the organiser repeats the same order after the last turn, up to 60 turns in total.
- New link: the organiser gets a new link and a new word, and the old ones stop opening. Anyone who already has a place keeps it: those with an account don't need to do anything, and those who joined without an account open the new link on the same device and type the new word.
- Leave: your place becomes free and your details to receive are deleted. Delete, for the organiser, deletes the savings circle for everyone, with the payments marked and the details to receive.
The eye also covers savings circle amounts; when you create one, the amount you type stays visible. Savings circles that are weekly, every 2 weeks or with more than 12 people, created before these rules, stay as they were.