External payments
SharedAnchor does not hold money. Payments happen outside SharedAnchor through methods you and your co-parent agree on, such as Venmo, cash, check, or Zelle. What SharedAnchor keeps is a record that a payment was made, so both parents share the same history.
Record a payment
Use Log payment to record a payment made outside SharedAnchor. A record can note the method, the amount, and any related expenses. This works the same for cash, check, Zelle, or another agreed method: you are documenting a payment that already happened or is about to happen off-platform. Every record starts as unconfirmed, and nothing auto-confirms.
Venmo setup and consent
To use the Venmo shortcut, each parent adds their Venmo handle once. On the web this is the Venmo settings screen, where you type your handle and choose Save handle. On the iPhone and Android apps you set the same handle on the Payment methods screen, which today holds only your Venmo username; SharedAnchor has no bank linking. Before the first Venmo handoff, you agree to a short consent so SharedAnchor can open Venmo with the payment details filled in. SharedAnchor never moves the money itself and never sees your Venmo balance.
Venmo handoff
On mobile you can choose Open Venmo to hand off to the Venmo app with the amount and note prefilled. After you finish in Venmo, come back and mark I've paid so SharedAnchor records that you sent it. The SharedAnchor record stays separate from the Venmo transfer; marking that you paid records your side, it does not pull money.
Confirmation
A payment record is unconfirmed, confirmed, or disputed.
Nothing auto-confirms.
The recipient confirming they received the payment is the fallback proof path, and confirmation moves the record to confirmed.
Payment statuses and derived states
Alongside the three core states, the app shows a more detailed status derived from the record's history:
unconfirmed(logged): recorded, waiting on confirmation.sender-observed: the sender marked it paid, waiting on the recipient.sender-only: the sender marked it paid but no recipient confirmation arrived within about a month.verified: both sides line up, or the recipient confirmed it.disputed: someone flagged a disagreement.cancelled: the record was cancelled before confirmation.
Disputed always takes priority in what you see, then cancelled, then verified.
Correct a payment
Payment records are append-only, so a mistake is fixed with a new record rather than by editing or deleting the original. Log a correcting record that reflects what actually happened; the original stays in the history for an accurate trail.
Cancel a payment
If a payment was never actually made, it can be cancelled before it is confirmed.
Cancelling records a cancelled state; the record itself stays in the history rather than disappearing.
Disputes
If a payment record is wrong or the money never arrived, use Dispute payment and Submit dispute instead of deleting the record.
A dispute records a disagreement and marks the record disputed, while the original record is preserved.
Full dispute resolution is handled outside the app for now.
Payment history and detail
Open Payment history to see the recorded payments for the pair. Open a single payment to see its detail, including its current status and how it got there.