How to Split a Credit Between FamZoo Accounts

As a FamZoo parent, you already know you can automatically split your child’s recurring allowance and/or chore payments between multiple accounts — like, say, spending, saving, and giving. Just define the splits once up front when you’re creating the allowance or the chore entry, and you’re all set.

But, what if you want to split a one-off deposit — like a birthday check from grandma or a babysitting payment — between accounts? Until last week, there was no super convenient way to do that. You had to calculate the split amounts in your head and credit each account separately. The new Split Credit feature takes care of all that for you in one simple step. You can either type in the specific split percentages you want, or you can quickly grab the split percentages off an existing allowance.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Look for the “Split Credit” Link

You can find the new Split Credit link in two places: (1) in the footers of the Account Balances and Account Activity sections on the Overview page or (2) in the Actions section of the left-hand sidebar on the Accounts and Transactions pages within the Bank tab. Note: you’ll only see the links if you have access to more than one account for a given family member.

Step 2: Choose a Family Member

In most cases, you’ll be asked to pick the family member for whom you’d like to split the credit. One exception is when you’re on the Transactions page. In that case, FamZoo will assume the desired family member is the owner of the account transactions you’re currently viewing, and you’ll jump directly to the next step.

Step 3: Fill in the Details

As the final step, fill in the date, description, total amount, and possibly a memo for your credit. Then, indicate how you’d like to split the total amount between accounts.

If your child has one or more allowances, they’ll be displayed in the split section, and you can select one to pick up its predefined split percentages. Or, you can always enter whatever split percentages you’d like directly in the last set of fields. That can be handy if you aren’t using allowances, or if you don’t want to split, say, a birthday check, in the same way that you’re splitting allowance payments — maybe your kids gets to spend more of their birthday money!

Click the Credit Accounts button, and you’re done.

The End Result

If you browse the transactions for each split credit destination account, you’ll find an entry for the appropriate fractional credit. It’ll look something like this:

We hope you’ll like the new Split Credit feature. Give it a spin, and let us know what you think.

The FamZoo Piggy Bank Challenge by 9 Year Old Game Designer, "Mr. Q"

Do you worry about the number of hours your child is frittering away playing online games? I know we do. But what if your child was spending that time designing and writing games instead of just playing them? That sounds a lot better, doesn’t it? It’s a creative challenge, and coding is a terrific skill for kids to learn in today’s software-driven world.

Too hard you say? Not necessarily. Try a game-building tool like GameMaker from YoYo Games. Unleash your child on it (there’s a free “Lite” version), and see what happens. You might be very surprised. I know I was. All I did was give my 9 year old son, “Mr. Q.”, a FamZoo piggy image, and he did everything else on his own. Try your hand at his FamZoo Piggy Bank Challenge game below (if you can’t see it or it isn’t working for some reason, visit http://famzoo.com/games/piggyv1).

Check out how fast your little piggy’s legs move when you bag a speed boost, and watch out for the bombs! Let us know your high score in the comments — it’s the honor system!

Note: if you want to put your kid’s game up on the web like I’ve done in this blog post, you’ll need to buy the HTML5 version.

Has your child tried building any games? Tell us about it in the comments. Be sure to provide a link if it’s available online.

Teaching Kids About Money: Who Are the Experts?

Do you have a favorite expert when it comes to teaching kids good personal finance habits? We’re compiling a curated list of the most credible and well-respected experts in this area.

I’ve primed the pump with an initial set.

Add your favorite. Vote for your favorites. You can do it right here in this embedded list. (Can’t see the embedded list? View it on List.ly here.)