Justin is the treasurer of the "Les Amis" tontine: ten members, 20,000 F each at every session, and the payout handed over the same evening. He keeps a notebook and a small tin box. At session 3, he counts the box in front of everyone: 20,000 F is missing to hand over Marie's 200,000 F payout. Did someone forget to pay? Did Justin forget to write it down? Two members swear they contributed, the notebook is scribbled out at that spot, and the mood of the session takes a hit.
What Justin wants is a record nobody can dispute: every contribution noted in front of the group, every payout handed over, and at any time the cash account's balance — which should return to zero after every complete session.
Justin decides to treat the tontine's money for what it is: money that isn't his, which he holds for the group. So he gives it a separate cash account, with one contact per member:
Two steps are enough:
| What happens | The transaction to record |
|---|---|
| A member contributes | Income |
| The pot is handed over to that session's member | Expense (the button is called "Pay out") |
The member is the key to the system: it's what lets you find, for each person, what they've contributed and what they've received.
Just a regular member? The logic is reversed: for you, a contribution leaves your pocket. See How much do I still have left to contribute?.
Have a Personal workspace
If you don't have a workspace yet, choose the « Personal » in the setup wizard: it only gives access to Contacts, Calendar and Finance, which is all this guide needs. Step-by-step setup is covered in Flore's paycheck.
Create the tontine's account
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Account type | Cash till (or Mobile payment if contributions arrive via Orange Money / MTN MoMo) |
| Name | Tontine Les Amis |
| Cashier | -- Myself -- (or your treasurer, see below) |
One account per tontine, never your personal cash. If you mix them, you'll no longer know what's yours and what belongs to the group. If you manage three tontines, create three accounts.
A new account refuses by default an expense greater than its balance ("Insufficient balance for this transaction"). This is useful here: you can't hand over the pot until all the contributions are in.
Not managing it alone?The cashier is the person whose entries are validated immediately. The supervisor can also record on the account, but their transactions stay pending : they don't count in either the balance or the totals until the cashier has confirmed them. This is a natural two-step validation: the secretary records, the treasurer approves.
Designate the secretary as Supervisor and the treasurer as Cashier in the account form (both must be members of your workspace). The cashier finds the transactions to approve in Finance → Transactions: the "Your approval" column offers a "Confirm" button.
Create a contact per member
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Name / Company name | the member's last name |
| First name(s) | their first name |
| Phone | their number (useful for following up) |
Also create a contact Tontine — Divers : the partner is required on every transaction, including an expense that doesn't involve any member (room rental, meals).
A person who takes part in several tontines only needs one contact: it's the account that distinguishes the tontines.
Faster — no need to go through the Contacts module. In the transaction form, click the "Create a contact" link under the Payer / Payee field: a window asks for Last name(s), First name(s) and Phone, then the newly created contact is selected right away. Careful: typing an unknown name in the field doesn't create anything, the list responds "No results found".
Record a contribution
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Account | Tontine Les Amis |
| Operation | Income |
| Label | Session 03 — contribution |
| Amount | 20 000 |
| Category | COTISATION |
| Payer | Marie Ngo |
Click Receive. A "Confirm transaction" window opens: click "Yes, I confirm".
The date and time are those of the entry. If you're recording after the session, click "Advanced options": there you'll find Date/time, Reference and Note. From the second entry onward, the label and category are suggested to you: all that's left is to choose the member and the amount.
Always write the session number the same way (Session 03, not "séance 3" nor "S3"). The label is what will let you list, in one go, every transaction from a session.
Category: click the exact row. When you type a name, the list also suggests categories that start the same way, and pressing Enter selects the first highlighted row. Typing FRAIS, the first row was FRAIS BANCAIRES: the category recorded wasn't the right one. Click the row that matches exactly what you want.
Hand over the payout
Same screen, selecting Expense :
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Account | Tontine Les Amis |
| Operation | Expense |
| Label | Session 03 — payout |
| Amount | 200 000 (10 members × 20 000) |
| Category | MAIN |
| Payee | the member receiving at this session |
Click Pay out. If a contribution is missing, the account's balance is insufficient and the transaction is refused: you immediately see that someone hasn't paid.
Where does a member stand?
Finances → Transactions, then in the left-hand panel:
- 1Quick period → This year (by default the screen only shows the current day).
- 2Accounts → check
Tontine Les Amis(so as not to mix it with their other tontines). - 3Payee → the member.
- 4Click Search.
The indicators at the top of the screen give the answer. For Marie, after session 3:
Marie has contributed 60,000 F (3 sessions) and has already received 200,000 F. She's therefore 140,000 F ahead of the group: she must keep contributing until the end of the cycle. The Net balance shows this gap directly.
If the member has also paid a fine, it gets added to the Receipts. To see only their contributions, add the filter Categories → COTISATION.
Who paid at this session?
On the same screen, type Session 03 in Keyword then click Search: the list shows every transaction from the session. Compare it with your list of members to spot the ones who are missing.
This is the move that would have saved Justin's session 3: in a few seconds, he knows which members have a contribution line, and which don't.
How much is in the cash account?
Finances → Comptes : the balance of "Tontine Les Amis" is the money actually held for the group. After a complete session (all contributions received, payout handed over), it returns to zero (or to the amount of the fines, see below). A balance that doesn't return to zero signals a recording error or a late contribution.
A table of every session?
There isn't yet a screen that cross-references members and sessions. To get one:
- 1Select the tontine's period and account, without filtering on a payee.
- 2Click Exporter CSV — the file contains the columns Label, Partner, Income and Expense.
- 3In Excel or Google Sheets, build a pivot table: Partenaire in rows, Libellé in columns, Encaissement in values.
You get the classic tontine notebook grid: one row per member, one column per session.
Two quirks of the file: the text is entirely in capital letters, and the DATE column shows the day of entry, not the date chosen in Advanced options. That's one more reason to put the session number in the label.
Session 3 of a 10-member tontine
| Label | Amount | |
|---|---|---|
| Receipts | 10 × Session 03 — contribution (20 000 F) | 200 000 F |
| Expense | Session 03 — payout — Marie Ngo | 200 000 F |
| Account balance after the session | 0 F |
Situation of two members at the end of session 3:
| Member | Contributed | Received | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marie Ngo | 60 000 F | 200 000 F | received their payout, still has 7 sessions left to contribute |
| Paul Mbarga | 60 000 F | 0 F | hasn't received yet, has advanced 60,000 F to the group |
When the tontine gets more complex
A member has several payouts
They contribute as many times as they have payouts, and receive one payout per turn won. Note it in the label (Session 03 — contribution, 2 payouts, amount 40 000). The "contributed − received" calculation stays accurate.
Fines (late, absent)
Income, category AMENDE, payer = the sanctioned member. It stays in the cash account: after the payout is handed over, the account's balance is no longer zero but equal to the accumulated fines. This is the tontine's fund.
Expenses (meals, room, transport)
Expense, category FRAIS, payee = Tontine — Divers. They're drawn from the fines fund, not from the members' pot.
Solidarity fund (bereavement, wedding, birth)
Create a second account : Tontine Les Amis — Solidarité. At every session, record the solidarity contribution on this account (category SOLIDARITE), and the assistance paid out as an Expense (category SECOURS, payee = the member being helped). The solidarity balance thus stays separate from the pot.
If you've already received everything into the main account, move the solidarity share using the Transfer (Finances → Comptes or Finances → Transactions), button, not an expense. Choose the source account, the destination account and the amount, click "Transfer now!", then confirm.
Loans between members
If the tontine lends money to its members:
| Operation | Type | Category | Member |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loan granted | Expense | PRET | the borrower |
| Repayment | Income | REMBOURSEMENT | the borrower |
| Interest | Income | INTERETS | the borrower |
The account's balance refuses a loan greater than what's in the cash account. To find out what a borrower still owes, filter on them: PRET outflows minus REMBOURSEMENT receipts. The calculation stays manual.
Savings tontine (everyone takes back their share at year end)
Here, what matters is each member's individual balance. Give each one their own account of type Wallet (Finances → Comptes → New account → Wallet) :
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Épargne — Paul Mbarga |
| Owner (contact) | the member |
| Allow negative balance | disabled (default setting) |
Each contribution is an Income entry on the member's wallet: their balance is what they've saved. At the end of the cycle, an Expense for the full amount gives them back their share. The wallet refuses to pay out more than what the member has saved.
Record it from the wallet's page, not from Transactions. Wallets don't appear in the list of accounts in the Transactions screen's New button. Open the wallet (Finance → Accounts, "Wallets" row), then click the green "Op." button: the "New income" window offers Operation (Income or Expense), Date/time, Reference, Label, Amount, Category, Partner and Note. Each wallet's balance is shown at the top of its page and in the list of accounts.
Reserve this for savings tontines: it creates one account per member, which makes a rotating tontine heavier to manage.
What Justin knows now
After a few sessions, the scribbled notebook and the tin box are no longer Justin's only reference. He records every contribution in front of the group, immediately sees who doesn't have a line for the current session, and knows that the cash account's balance should fall back to zero once the payout has been handed over. When a member disputes something, he opens their record: what they've contributed, what they've received, line by line. Session 3 wouldn't have taken ten minutes of discussion, just ten seconds of lookup.
Habits to build
- 1One account per tontine. The group's money never mixes with your own.
- 2Always fill in the member. A transaction with no member disappears from the individual situation.
- 3Always write labels and categories the same way. COTISATION and Cotisation produce two separate lines in your totals.
- 4Click the exact row in the category list. Pressing Enter selects the first highlighted row, which may be a similarly-named category.
- 5Record it on the day of the session, contribution by contribution, in front of the group: that's what makes the account indisputable.
- 6Change the period. The Transactions screen opens on the current day: if you don't see anything, click "This year".
- 7Don't confuse a transfer with an expense. Moving money from one tontine account to another is a transfer.
- 8Don't read the overall balance as your own. The "Overall balance — all accounts" on the Dashboard also adds up the tontines' money.
What this guide doesn't cover
Deliberately limited to the Contacts and Finance modules of the Personal workspace:
- no rotation order: who receives at which session is noted separately (paper, Calendar);
- no automatic list of unpaid contributions per session: they're spotted using the Keyword filter;
- no repayment schedule or automatic interest calculation for internal loans;
- no access for members: each one doesn't check their own situation, it's you who reads it for them;
- no automatic reminder to members who are late;
- no members × sessions table on screen: it's done through the CSV export described above;
- no wallet in the Transactions screen's quick entry: a wallet's transactions are recorded from its own page.
These needs would call for a module dedicated to tontines.
Contacts and Finance are available for free in the Personal workspace — no credit card required.
