Who spent what — person attribution

Any transaction in keel can be attributed to a specific household member — a light "this was Mike's" tag for couples who want to see who spent what.

It's strictly optional, and it never changes a single number. Your score, your reports and your budgets are household-level whether you attribute everything, some things, or nothing at all.

How it works

Setting the person on a transaction

Open the transaction's detail page. In households with more than one member, a Person row appears (marked "optional") showing who the transaction is currently assigned to, or "Not assigned". Tap a member's name to attribute it; tap Clear to remove the attribution.

Every household member can be picked — including a declared partner who never logs in, and a partner whose invitation is still pending. See How households work for the three kinds of member.

If your household has only one member, the row doesn't appear — there's no one to distinguish.

What attribution affects — and what it never touches

Attribution is purely informational. It never affects:

• Your health score — no component looks at who spent the money.
• Your reports — totals are household totals, always.
• Your budgets — they track household spending against household targets.

What it gives you is a label you can see when looking at a transaction: a way to remember whose purchase something was, or to ground a money conversation in specifics.

Account assignment is separate

Accounts can also be assigned to a member ("Victoria's Amex"), but that's ownership labelling on the account, not transaction attribution. A transaction on a jointly used account can still be attributed to whichever person actually made it — or to no one.

Why it works this way

keel is built on the household-as-one-pool model: money is shared, the score is shared, and there are no private transactions. Couples who pool everything should never be penalised — or even nudged — for not tracking who spent what. So attribution exists for the couples who want it, and is invisible to the couples who don't.

It's also why attribution is framed as useful for conversations, not blame. "Who spent what" is a fact worth being able to check; it's not a scoreboard, and keel never turns it into one.

Good to know

• Attributing a transaction to a declared partner works straight away — they don't need a keel login.
• If you later remove a declared partner, their attributions are cleared along with the ownership label; the transactions themselves are untouched.
• There's no bulk attribution — it's a per-transaction tag, set from the detail page.

FAQ

Does person attribution affect my score? No, never. It's purely informational.

Do I have to attribute transactions? No. Skipping it entirely loses you nothing — keel works identically without it.

Can I see a report of spending per person? Not currently. Attribution shows on each transaction; reports stay household-level.

Can I attribute a transaction to my partner before they've accepted their invite? Yes. Declared and pending members appear in the person picker just like active ones.