Organizing Together: One App for Roommates, Families and Travel Groups

Who paid for Friday's pizza? Is toilet paper already on the list? And whose turn was it to clean the bathroom this week? Anyone who lives with other people, travels together or simply shares everyday life knows these questions. Most of the time they end up in a group chat, somewhere between holiday photos and voice messages, and three days later nobody can find them.

That is exactly what we wanted to change when we built Kithora as a group organizer app. Instead of five different apps for expenses, shopping, chores, trip planning and photos, the whole group gets one shared place. In this post we show how it works, who it is made for and what we care about most.

Why groups so often end up in chaos

It is rarely a lack of goodwill. Usually there is just no shared overview. Everyone uses different tools, and the information ends up scattered:

• Expenses live in one app, on scraps of paper or only in someone's head.
• The shopping list is stuck to the fridge while you are standing in the supermarket.
• Chores get handed out in the chat and forgotten there.
• Travel plans are spread across emails, screenshots and shared documents.
• Photos from the last trip end up in five different galleries.

Each of these solutions works on its own. Put together, they mean that one person always ends up holding everything together. And that person is usually pretty fed up with it.

The idea behind Kithora: one place for everything you share

In Kithora every group gets its own space. We call it a Kora. Your flat gets one Kora, your family a second one, next summer's sailing trip a third. Inside a Kora all members see the same thing: the same kitty, the same list, the same plan.

You decide which areas a Kora needs. A travel group might not need a chore plan, a family might not need trip stages. Anything you do not use can simply be hidden.

What is inside a Kora

Split expenses and settle up fairly

Whoever pays for something adds it in a few seconds. Kithora keeps track of who owes whom and suggests as few settlement payments as possible at the end. Expenses can be split equally, by percentage or individually, even across currencies. You can snap a photo of a receipt and let the app recognise the individual items.

One shopping list for everyone

Everyone writes on the same list, and whoever is in the shop sees right away what is missing. Things you buy often go into a library and back onto the list with one tap. Ingredients from a recipe can be sent straight to the list.

Tasks and chores

Tasks can be assigned to individual members, with due dates and reminders. Recurring jobs like taking out the bins or cleaning the bathroom come back on their own. If you like, points and a leaderboard turn it into a little game.

Plan trips and outings

For holidays and day trips you create a trip and plan it in stages: travel, accommodation, activities, restaurants. Every day is laid out clearly. And when the group cannot agree, a poll decides.

The Chronicle: your shared timeline

In the Chronicle you share photos, videos and short posts. After a trip everything is in one place instead of scattered across ten chats.

Each of these areas can do more than fits here, so we will introduce them one by one in their own posts.

Who Kithora is made for

Kithora fits wherever several people organize something together:

• Roommates and flatmates who want to keep the household kitty, shopping and chores under control
• Families coordinating daily life between school, work and the weekly shop
• Couples who want to split shared costs fairly
• Friends and travel groups, from a weekend away to a stag or hen party
• Sailing and boat crews who run a crew kitty and plan the trip

Most of us belong to several of these groups at once. That is why you can switch between several Koras in Kithora without anything getting mixed up.

Privacy is not an add-on for us

What a group shares among itself is nobody else's business. That is why every Kora is end-to-end encrypted. Your data is encrypted and decrypted on your own devices, and even we as the provider cannot read your expenses, lists or photos.

Two more things make a big difference day to day. You do not need an account with an email address and password to get started. And the app works without internet too, for example in a dead zone or out on the water. As soon as you are back online, everything syncs by itself.

How to get started

1. Download Kithora from the App Store or Google Play.
2. Create a profile with a name and avatar. You do not need an email address.
3. Write down your recovery phrase so you can restore your profile on a new device.
4. Create your first Kora and pick a template such as Flatshare, Family, Couple or Travel group.
5. Invite the others via link or QR code.

What comes next

This post is only the beginning. In the next articles we will go deeper: how to split costs fairly between roommates, how to make a chore plan actually stick, how to plan a group trip without endless chat threads and how a crew kitty works on a sailing trip. If there is a topic you are especially curious about, let us know.