Closing a tab, its activity and printing it

A tab keeps a history of what happened in it, from the day it started: bills added and made ready, people joining and leaving, and payments. Its settings are where it is given a picture, renamed, muted, archived, printed or exported, and where it is closed, left or deleted once everyone is paid up. The printed tab and its PDF give each bill on a line, the balances and the payments.

How to see a tab's activity

1. Open the tab and press Activity, the second button in the bar at its foot.
2. Read down from the newest. Each line says who did what, by day, and calls you "You".

A bill's own changes, its items and claims, are in that bill's activity. The tab's history says when a bill was added, made ready, reopened or deleted, or had its rate changed.

How to change a tab's settings

1. Open the tab, press Tab menu at the top, then Settings.
2. Under About this tab, Picture comes first. Press Add a picture, or Change once it has one, then Take a photo or Choose a photo, move and zoom it into the square and press Use photo. It is saved at once. Remove takes it away at once, and the message that follows offers Undo. With no picture, the tab shows its initials.
3. Press Name to rename it, or Settles in to change the currency it settles in. The currency can change until the first payment is confirmed.
4. Under For you, turn on Mute this tab to hear only about payments to or from you, or press Archive this tab to take it off your lists. Neither changes anything for anyone else.

The owner and admins change the picture, the name and the currency; anyone else sees the picture with "Set by the owner or an admin", and the name and currency locked. Everyone who can open the tab sees its picture, its guests too: beside the tab's name at the top of the tab, and leading the tab's row in Tabs, on Home, in a search, in a group and on a person's screen, where a settled tab carries a small tick on its corner and a closed one a small box. It is never on the tab's invite page, a printed tab, a CSV, an email or a notification.

Where upgrades are offered, whoever runs the tab also has Upgrade this tab there, for a 5-pack, a weekend pass or a tab pass, and Auto reminders, which remind everyone who still owes on the tab once it has a pass. See Upgrades.

How to print a tab or export it

1. Open Settings and press Print or save as PDF. The tab is shown as it will look on paper.
2. Press Print, or Save as PDF.

Someone in the tab as a guest, with no account, finds Print or save as PDF on the Tab menu itself. Export CSV, under For you, makes a spreadsheet file of the tab's bills, each person's share and its payments.

The printed tab gives its name, whether it is open or closed, the days its bills span and the currency it settles in; then each bill that counts on one line, with its day, who paid and its total in its own currency, and the total; the bills not counted yet, each with why; each person's balance; the payments; and what is still to pay. A bill prints in full from its own screen.

How to close, leave or delete a tab

Under Ending this tab:

• Close tab: the owner and admins, once every balance is zero and every bill counts. No bill can be added and nobody can join until it is reopened with Reopen tab.
• Leave tab: anyone but the owner, once their own balance is zero. You stop seeing it; your part of its bills stays under your name.
• Delete tab: the owner only, while nobody has said or recorded a payment in it. The tab and its bills go to Recently deleted, from where they come back together.

Each happens at once, and the message that follows offers Undo. A row that cannot be used yet is locked, and says why.

Worked example: the end of the Lisbon weekend

Priya opens the Lisbon weekend's Activity. Among its lines:

• Maya started the tab, settling in EUR
• Tom added Taxi, 24.00, paid by Tom
• Tom added Heathrow coffee, 15.00, paid by Tom. Counted at 1 GBP = 1.1600 EUR
• Maya added Sam
• Maya made Dinner at Ramiro ready for payment

Maya, who started the tab, opens Settings. Close tab is locked: "Not yet: Maya, Tom and Sam still owe". Leave tab says "Not yet: hand the tab over to someone first", since she owns it. Tom's Leave tab says "Not yet: you owe Priya 76.40".

Once Tom, Sam and Maya have paid Priya, Close tab says "Not yet: a bill is not ready for payment": the Brunch is still open. Maya makes it ready for payment or deletes it, and can then close the tab. Delete tab is locked once anyone has paid: "Not possible: someone has said they paid".

Maya prints the tab before closing it. The paper says Open and "Settles in Euro", and lists the Airbnb, the Taxi, the Heathrow coffee and the Dinner at Ramiro, 377.40 in all. Under the Heathrow coffee's 15.00 in pounds it says "Counted as ~" 17.40 in euros "at 1 GBP = 1.1600 EUR". Under Not counted yet, the Brunch says "Not ready for payment yet".

If something stops you

• Close tab is not shown. Only the owner and admins close a tab.
• Delete tab is not shown. Only the owner deletes a tab.
• Leave tab is locked for the owner. Hand the tab over to someone first, from People.
• "The picture did not save. Try again." The photo did not upload, or the tab was not changed, so it keeps the picture it had. Try again with a connection.
• The settings are greyed out. Changing them needs a connection. The activity and a printed tab you opened before can still be read.