How Finelly works

Finelly turns punctuality into a game with clear rules: whoever turns up late pays a fine the group itself agreed on. The app never touches that money. What it does is count the minutes, apply the rules you set when creating the event, and put the result in writing where everyone can see it.

This page walks through the whole process, including exactly how fines are calculated and what happens when things do not go to plan.

1. You create the event

The organiser sets five things:

Title and place. The venue is searched by name or address and stored with its coordinates. That point is what later validates arrivals.
Start date and time. This is the reference everything else is measured against. If the group wants, it can allow a few minutes of leeway before delays start counting.
Price per minute. What each minute of delay costs. Any amount works, from a few cents to whatever the group can stomach.
How many stragglers pay. This is the setting that changes the game the most. Pick one and only the very last person pays; pick two and the two latest arrivals pay, and so on.
Where the pot goes. The first round, dessert, petrol for the next trip. It is free text and it is printed on the receipt so nobody can argue about it afterwards.

Saving the event generates an invite code. You share that code or the link with the group and each person confirms whether they are coming. Only those who accept are in the game: anyone who does not reply, or declines, is left out of the count and cannot be fined.

2. Everyone checks in on arrival

When you get there, you press the check-in button. The app checks your location at that precise moment and accepts the arrival if you are within 150 metres of the event venue. That margin is wide enough to work in a square, a shopping centre or a long street, but not wide enough to check in from your sofa.

Two important things about location:

It is read only at that moment, when you press the button. There is no background tracking and no history of where you go.
The coordinates of that specific arrival are stored against that event, because they are the proof the check-in was valid. The details are in the privacy policy.

Check in before the start time and you are within the deadline and pay nothing. Check in after it and the app works out your delay.

3. The event closes and the receipt comes out

When the event is closed, Finelly does three things in this order:

Works out each late arrival's minutes. Minutes are always rounded up: arriving seven minutes and ten seconds late counts as eight minutes. That is deliberate, so nobody argues over seconds.
Ranks the late arrivals, from the latest to the least late.
Fines only the top of that list, as many people as you decided should pay. Each amount is their minutes multiplied by the price per minute.

The result is the event receipt: who arrived when, who pays what, and the total pot.

A worked example

Dinner at 9:00 pm, $0.50 per minute, and you decided that the last two pay. There are five of you:

Marta checks in at 8:52 pm. On time. Pays $0.
Javi checks in at 8:58 pm. On time. Pays $0.
Elena checks in at 9:02 pm. Two minutes late, but not among the last two, so she gets away with it. Pays $0.
Nacho checks in at 9:07 pm. Seven minutes late and second to last: he is in. Pays $3.50.
Sara checks in at 9:12 pm. Twelve minutes and last of all: pays $6.00.

Total pot: $9.50, going to the first round. Elena was late and pays nothing — which is exactly the tension that makes people run the last few metres.

Details worth knowing

Anyone who never checks in gets no fine on the receipt. If someone does not show up, or forgets to press the button, the app has no arrival time to measure and assigns no amount. Finelly only counts recorded arrivals; what you do about a no-show is up to the group.
Only people who accepted the invitation count. Invitees who never replied are left out of the calculation.
The punctuality streak adds a day every time you arrive within the deadline, and it builds up on your profile alongside your achievements.

Keep reading

The house rules, with everything you can configure
Frequently asked questions