Family Travel Planner: from the invitation to the photos

The Family Travel Planner is an optional module switched on from the add-ons (Add-ons). Any adult can organize a trip for their family.

Money: it never passes through the app

The app handles no money. A participant transfers to the details the organizer wrote and then records what they paid (the amount, the reference and a receipt photo); the organizer (or a co-organizer given the right to confirm payments) confirms it. Confirming issues a numbered receipt. A confirmed payment is never edited or deleted, and refunds, expenses and settlements are separate records, so nothing is counted twice.

The steps of a trip

1. Draft: you create the trip (destination, dates, currency, number of people, the deposit and its terms). Only you see it.
2. Collecting deposits: you open the trip and the invitations go out. Before opening a trip with a deposit, write how to pay, the cancellation policy and a deadline.
3. Confirmed: you confirm it yourself, or choose a rule (enough people paid, or the funding target is reached). Without automatic confirmation you only get a notice.
4. On the road, then completed. The organizer can cancel the trip, and every confirmed payment becomes a refund request.

Who does what

• The organizer runs everything and names co-organizers, each with two separate rights: planning and confirming payments.
• An invited person answers: I am coming, I cannot, or not sure, and reads the terms before accepting.
• Only people who accepted see the payments, bookings, expenses and album. A family admin alone gets no access to a trip's money.

Itinerary, bookings, expenses and album

• The itinerary is day by day; organizers add to it and other participants suggest activities the organizer adds.
• Bookings are details of a booking made elsewhere, with its reference and an attached file, seen only by people who are coming.
• Expenses are split equally or by custom amounts between those who share them, then who owes whom is shown with suggested transfers. They are suggestions only: settle among yourselves, then record "Paid back".
• The album belongs to the trip and never appears on the family wall.

Seats: invite more than you need, and the seat goes to whoever pays first

• Set the maximum number of people (the trip's seats) and invite whoever you like. When there is a deposit, an invited person saying "I am coming" does not hold a seat; recording the deposit takes the seat, and the first to record theirs gets it. A recorded payment waiting for your confirmation keeps the seat held for its owner, and if you reject it the seat comes back.
• When all seats are taken, people who say "I am coming" join a waiting list with their number, and cannot record a deposit until a seat opens.
• When a seat opens (someone cancelled, a place was released, or a payment was rejected) the people on the waiting list are told that the seat is free and to record their deposit; the seat goes to whoever pays first.
• If someone has not paid by the deadline, release their place (or let it release automatically if you chose that) and the waiting list is told. You can also offer the free seat to one person with the "Offer the free seat" button; it is only a nudge, and the seat still goes to whoever pays first.
• If the trip has no deposit, the seat goes to whoever says "I am coming" first.
• This rule is shown to every invited person in the trip's terms before they accept.

If the deposit deadline passes and someone has not paid

• Someone who said "I am coming" and has not paid the deposit is overdue: the organizer sees an "Overdue" mark with the number of days, gets one notice naming the overdue people, and the overdue person gets one alert.
• The organizer can extend the deadline (the unpaid are told) or release the place of an overdue person with one button; they become "cancelled" and are told. Anything already confirmed becomes a refund request.
• A payment recorded after the deadline is accepted while the trip is open, but the organizer sees it marked "Late".
• No place is released automatically unless the organizer chose, when making the trip, to release "Unpaid places" the day after the deadline or 1, 3, 7 or 14 days after it. That rule is shown to every invited person in the trip's terms before they accept.
• Three days before the deadline, everyone who said yes and has not paid gets one reminder.

Every financial and admin step is recorded in Family activity, and you get notices for payments and confirmations.