One round, start to finish.
Your circle already knows how a njangi works. This is how Takentu keeps track of it — what you do, what the software does, and what everyone can see.
Two words we use precisely
- A round is the whole sequence — everybody contributes, everybody gets paid once, and it ends. Twelve members, twelve payouts, one round.
- A cycle is one turn inside it. One collection, one payout, one person’s turn.
- A circle is your group. Some people say njangi, tontine, susu, chama, partner or stokvel. Same thing.
One round, start to finish
- 01
Start your circle
Working todayYou: Name it, and set up multi-factor authentication — required for anyone who'll be an admin or treasurer.
Takentu: Creates the circle, makes you its admin, and starts an activity trail that records everything from this point on.
- 02
Bring your members in
Working todayYou: Invite people by email, share a join code, or open the circle to requests you approve one at a time.
Takentu: Sends the invitations, tracks whether each one arrived, and expires the links after fourteen days. Each person who joins gets a role — member, treasurer, or another admin.
- 03
Set the round
In developmentYou: Will set the contribution amount, how often it's collected, and the payout order — arranged by hand, or drawn at random.
Takentu: Will lay out the whole round on a calendar, so everyone can see their contribution dates and their payout date before a penny moves.
- 04
Each cycle, contributions come in
In developmentYou: Won't have to do anything. Members who've connected a bank will be collected from automatically; anyone paying another way gets recorded by the treasurer in a couple of taps.
Takentu: Will send reminders before the due date, collect on the close date, and show the whole circle how the cycle is filling up in real time.
- 05
The payout goes out
In developmentYou: Will see the payout confirmed, and so will everyone else.
Takentu: Will send the pooled amount to whoever's turn it is, straight to the account they nominated, and write it permanently into the ledger.
- 06
Everyone can check the record
Partly todayToday: every change to your circle — members, roles, invitations — is already recorded and readable by the people it affects.
Coming: the same permanent record for every contribution and payout, plus year-to-date totals and exports.
Between your banks. Never through ours.
Most apps that move group money open a wallet: everyone tops it up, the balance sits with the company, and payouts come back out. Takentu is being built the other way round.
Members will connect the bank account they already use. On each close date, contributions will be drawn from those accounts and delivered to the member whose turn it is. The system is designed so that money never rests in an account Takentu controls — not overnight, not for an hour.
No balance to top up.
There's nothing to load and nothing to withdraw. Money leaves one member's bank and arrives at another's.
Your credentials stay with your bank.
Connecting an account won't hand us your login. We'll never see it.
Every movement is recorded.
Collections, payouts, failures and corrections will all be permanent entries anyone in the circle can check.
This is the design we’re building toward, and we’re some way from finished. When money movement opens, we’ll say so here first.
When something goes wrong
Circles run for years. Things happen.
The treasurer disappears
Working todayThis is the failure a spreadsheet can't survive, and it's already handled. A circle can have several admins and several treasurers, ownership can be handed over without losing any history, and the record belongs to the circle rather than to whoever set it up.
Somebody doesn't pay
In developmentThe shortfall will be visible to the whole circle rather than to the treasurer alone, so it's a group conversation instead of an awkward private one. Takentu will record what happened. What you do about it stays your circle's decision — that's not ours to automate.
A transfer fails
In developmentTransfers bounce — closed accounts, insufficient funds, a bank that says no. Failures will be surfaced to the treasurer with the reason attached, and recorded like everything else. Nothing will fail quietly.
Someone gets the numbers wrong
In developmentCorrections will be added as new entries, never as edits to old ones — with who made them and why. The mistake stays visible, and so does the fix. That's what makes the ledger worth trusting.
A member leaves
Working todayRemoving someone doesn't erase them. Their history stays in the circle's record, because a round that already happened doesn't stop having happened.
Asked, and answered
Can I use this if my circle still collects by Zelle or cash?
That's most circles today, and it's the case we're building for first. Right now you can run your roster, roles and invitations in Takentu while collecting however you already do. Recording those contributions in the ledger is what we're building next, so you'll get a real record before you get automatic collection.
Do you hold our money?
No — and we're building it so we never will. Takentu isn't a wallet and there's no balance to top up. When settlement opens, money will move between members' own bank accounts. Today no money moves through Takentu at all.
What does it cost?
Nothing today — billing isn't switched on yet. We'll publish pricing before it is.
Our members are in three different countries. Does that work?
You can run the circle across borders today — the roster, roles and records don't care where anyone lives. Money movement will start in the US, with the UK, France and Belgium after that.
Who can see my contribution history?
You, and the people running your circle. Members see the circle's overall standing and their own record in full. Nothing crosses between circles — being in two njangis means the two never see each other.
What happens if I want to leave?
You can leave a circle, and you can delete your account entirely from your own settings — no email to support. What a circle already recorded about a round that happened stays in that circle's record.
How big can a circle be?
Most are eight to twenty-five members, and that's what we've designed around. Nothing stops a larger one, but rounds get long — twenty-five monthly cycles is over two years.
Is there an app?
Not yet. Takentu works in a phone browser today, and mobile apps are on the roadmap after money movement.
Ready when you are.
Set up your circle in a few minutes. No card, nothing to pay.