Kept back,
bought ahead
Two arrangements almost every farm already runs on trust: keeping part of a worker's pay so they can save, and buying them something now that they pay back later. Famu does not change either one. It writes them down, so the worker and the farm are reading the same number.
Peter asked you to keep 20,000 of his pay each month for his children's school fees. After three months, that is money the farm owes him, not money the farm has.
You bought him a 150,000 mattress in town and agreed he would pay 50,000 a month. One deduction in, he owes the farm the rest.
Savings are one more box on the payment
Nothing to set up. You record the payment you were going to record anyway.
Enter the total you are paying the worker: their wage for the month, or the days times their rate. Underneath it, Kept as savings is the part you are holding back at their request. Famu works out the cash to hand over from those two, so the parts always add up to the total. The Savings tab then shows, for every worker, how much the farm is holding.
When Peter wants his money, Pay out hands back some or all of it, and it goes down as a payment like any other. Famu will not let you pay out more than you are holding.
An item is an instalment plan in reverse
If you have ever paid an expense off in pieces, you already know how this works.
Add the item, what it cost, and how it will come back: split into 3, 50,000 each time, or custom: list the repayments yourself, or leave the list empty and record them as they come. The cost is recorded as money that went to Peter, so the cash box and his record both know about it the day you buy it.
From then on, every time you pay him, the payment form offers the next deduction, already filled in. Tick it and the item shows what is left.
Not every repayment comes out of pay. Peter may hand you 30,000 in cash one week, or clear the lot before he leaves. Open the item and tap Record repayment: any amount, any day. The plan still to come shrinks by the same amount, so the payment form never asks for money he no longer owes.
That last line is the whole idea: the three parts always add up to the total, the worker can check it, and the farm's books count the 200,000 once. If the savings and the deduction ever add up to more than the total, the form says by how much and will not save.
Watch the money add up
Peter earns 200,000 a month. Change what he saves and what comes off for the mattress, and follow every shilling.
| Month | Earned | Kept | Deducted | Handed over | Savings held | Mattress left | Expense |
|---|
That is the one rule, and everything else follows from it. A day-rate worker's balance, a payroll run and Money Owed all count a payment at its whole pay, not just the cash, so a worker who saves never looks underpaid, and a mattress bought in the middle of the month is never taken out of that month's pay in one go.
The farm's expenses follow the same rule. Each month's payment is one expense of its whole total. Buying the mattress and paying the savings back out are not expenses of their own, because the wages already counted that money. A farm that books it the other way can switch either one on in Settings → Farm, and the wage then leaves that part out. Flip the two settings above and watch the Expense column move without the money ever being counted twice.
The rules that keep it honest
Counted once in your books
A payment is one expense of its total, in your batch and planting profit, your record reports and the accounting export. The cash box still follows only the cash that actually left it.
You can never pay out more than you hold
Not greyed out in the form — refused by the database. The same goes for lowering an old payment's savings below what has already been paid out.
A deduction only comes from that worker's pay
Peter's mattress cannot be taken off Grace's payment, and it cannot be paid for out of the money that bought it. Delete a payment that carried a deduction and the deduction goes back to planned, because it did not happen after all.
The plan does not have to add up
Like an expense paid in instalments, the deductions need not match the cost to the shilling. If you let the last 10,000 go, write the rest off, and the item says so.
Leaving the farm is a warning, not a wall
Deactivate a worker who still has savings held or an item not paid off and Famu names both amounts first. It does not stop you: you may have settled up in cash. Record that repayment on the item and the warning goes away; either way the balances stay on their record.
Savings can pay an item back
On the item, Record repayment → From savings takes it out of what the farm is holding for that worker. No cash changes hands, the savings go down by exactly that much, and it can never be more than is held. Put it back and the savings return.
Both show up on Money Owed
Savings the farm is holding sit under You owe; what is left on an item sits under Owed to you, each aged like every other debt.
Famu keeps the record. The farm keeps the money.
This is not a bank, and it is not a loan
Savings recorded here are cash the farm is holding, wherever the farm keeps it. Famu does not move money, pay interest, or charge fees, and nothing here is a savings account. It is a written record of a promise between a farm and a worker.
The record is only worth something if the worker can see it. Show them their balance on their own page, or read it out at pay day. A number only one side can see is the thing this feature exists to replace.
Earns its keep for
- Workers who ask you to hold part of their pay
- School fees, a bicycle, a phone, a mattress bought ahead of pay
- Farms where "how much have I saved?" gets asked at every pay day
- Anyone who has argued about what is left on something bought months ago
Does little for
- A farm that never holds back pay or buys on a worker's behalf
- Formal loans with interest — those belong under Loans & Grants
- Money a worker saves somewhere else, like a SACCO