Shared household expenses: who paid for what, without a spreadsheet or an argument
La Caisse, the expense module in Zoku, for families, couples, flatshares and separated parents. Android and iOS.
Cost-splitting apps do one thing: divide a bill. But a household is not a restaurant. Here, expenses come out of the groceries, the meal plan, the stock that needs replacing, the kids' activities. La Caisse lives where expenses are born: in the same app as the shopping list and the tribe's calendar.
Why the shared spreadsheet never lasts
Everyone has tried. It works for three weeks.
The receipt stays in a coat pocket, the amount is forgotten, the line never gets added. An expense not logged within thirty seconds is a lost expense.
« Groceries - £84 ». By whom? When? For which tribe? Without a named payer the total is useless, and it piles mental load onto whoever keeps the books.
You find the overspend on the bank statement, a fortnight later. Too late to adjust anything.
An expense-sharing app has no idea you have planned dinner for six on Saturday. It cannot anticipate anything about household life.
How La Caisse works
Amount, payer, description. The currency is the tribe's, chosen once. The tribe gets a notification.
« What did Mum pay for in August? » Three taps. Filtered total and per-payer breakdown on one screen.
Till receipt, invoice, prescription: attached to the expense and findable with one filter. Premium.
Private, admins, the whole tribe. A birthday present does not show up for the person receiving it.
The flatshare's expenses never mix with the couple's or the family's. You switch tribe, the cashbox follows.
« Add 23 pounds of groceries paid by Theo »: it lands in the cashbox, with the right payer.
Four situations where it changes everything
A shared budget without a joint account: each of you pays, La Caisse says who fronted how much this month.
→ Zoku for couplesA common pot, groceries fronted, settling up with the landlord, the receipt attached to the expense.
Dentist, school meals, clothes: the child's costs in a dedicated co-parenting tribe, filtered by parent.
→ Zoku for shared custodyRent, groceries, petrol: everyone logs what they front. The accounts are settled before the first car leaves.
→ Group holidaysLa Caisse next to cost-splitting apps
| Typical cost-splitting app | La Caisse (Zoku) | |
|---|---|---|
| Log an expense with a payer | Yes | Yes |
| Receipt photo | Sometimes | Yes ⭐ |
| Filter by member and period | Yes | Yes |
| Visibility set per expense | No | Private / admins / tribe |
| Connected to the shopping list | No | Yes |
| Connected to the calendar and meals | No | Yes |
| Several households kept apart | Groups | Independent tribes |
| Repayments calculated (« who owes whom ») | Yes | No (La Caisse shows, it does not settle) |
Zoku is not a debt-settlement tool. It makes expenses visible so the household can decide.
The rest of the household follows : the shared shopping list, the meal planner and the family calendar.
And for one-off budgets : the group holiday pot or shared Christmas costs.
FAQ - Shared expenses
Does La Caisse work out who owes whom?
No. La Caisse shows the total per payer over the period you choose; balancing happens between you. That is a deliberate choice: a household is not a travel group, you do not settle to the penny. If you are looking for a Tricount or Splitwise alternative to clear debts, Zoku does not do that: it makes expenses visible so the household can decide.
Can we track expenses in several currencies?
Each tribe has its own currency, chosen once in its settings. A British-Swiss family can run one tribe in pounds and one in francs: each cashbox stays in its own currency, with no rough conversion.
Do the other members see all my expenses?
Only the ones you make visible to the tribe. Every expense has a visibility level: private (you only), admins, or the whole tribe. A birthday present therefore never shows up for the person receiving it.
Can I export the expenses?
Yes. You can export all of your data at any time from the account settings, as GDPR requires. Data is hosted in Europe.
Is it free?
Yes. Logging, payer, filters by member and period, visibility and notifications are all free. Attaching a receipt photo to an expense is a Premium feature.
Your shared expenses, finally in the same place as everything else
Free on Android and iOS. No credit card.