> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://chattree.co/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Contributions > Collect money for a wedding, burial or party into your own account, and keep track of who has paid. A group is chipping in for something — a wedding gift, a burial, a party, a send-off. Chattree posts your account details in the group once, then helps you keep the list of who has paid. **The money goes to your own bank account. Chattree never touches it and cannot see it.** That means Chattree cannot tell you a payment arrived — only you can, by checking your bank. Every total it shows you says so. Treat the list as your own notes, kept tidy, not as a bank statement. ## Opening a collection Message Chattree directly. A collection is set up in your own chat, never in the group. Reply **4** for **My Groups**. Each group is listed with a number. Reply **`collect 1`** — using that group's number. Replying just **`collect`** lists your groups instead of failing. Send what the money is for — *Tunde & Ada's wedding*, *Mama Grace's burial*. This is the heading the group sees, so write it for them. Ten digits. Then pick your bank from the list Chattree sends, by number or by name. Chattree asks your bank who owns that account and reads the name back to you: ``` Here is what I will post in Unshift Africa: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Tunde & Ada's wedding 0123456789 GTBank ADAEZE OKONKWO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ That is the name on the account, straight from the bank. If it is not who you expect, say no — do not post it. ``` Reply **yes** to post it, or **no** to stop. Nothing is posted and nothing is saved until you say yes. **Read that name properly.** It comes from your bank, not from what you typed, so it is the one thing that catches a mistyped account number before anybody sends money to a stranger. A number the bank does not recognise cannot open a collection at all. ## What the group sees One message, once: ``` 💐 Tunde & Ada's wedding Contributions can be sent to: 0123456789 GTBank ADAEZE OKONKWO Tell me once you have sent yours and I will pass it on to the organiser. ``` That is the only thing this feature ever posts to a group. The list of who has paid is yours and stays in your own chat — Chattree will not put it in front of everyone. If you change the account later, Chattree announces it **as a change**, so a new number never appears quietly. A silent swap is what a compromised account looks like, and the group deserves to see that it moved. That post counts as [an announcement](/docs/guides/announcements#the-limits-and-why-they-exist), because it is Chattree speaking to a group unprompted. So it obeys the same limits — quiet hours, and three announcements per group per week. If one of them stops it, Chattree tells you which, **nothing is posted, and the collection does not open**. Start it again with `collect` once the limit has passed — a half-finished attempt is cleared, so you will be asked for the details again. ## Keeping the list Two things fill the list, and members do most of the work. ### Members say they have sent theirs A member messages Chattree directly — *"I sent 20k yesterday"* — and it is recorded as a **claim** and passed to you. A claim is not a payment. It never counts toward the total until you confirm it. You will see them waiting: ``` Waiting on you 1. Musa Bello says ₦20,000 2. Ada Okonkwo says ₦5,000 Reply paid all, or paid 1,3 for some of them. ``` Check your bank, then reply **`paid all`** — or **`paid 1,3`** for some of them. Confirm twenty at once if twenty are waiting. This is the part that makes a collection cheap to run. You are not being asked *"who has paid?"* and made to remember — you are reading a list and saying yes. The people who paid do the remembering. ### Or just tell it Type them however you like, any time: ``` Musa paid 20k, Ada 5k, Chidi 15,000 ``` **`20k`** means twenty thousand. Names are matched against your group's member list. A name that matches nobody is kept exactly as you typed it and reported back to you, rather than attached to whoever is closest — a contribution should not be invented out of a typo. A first name shared by two members matches neither, and Chattree says so. ## Seeing where it stands Reply **`collected`** at any time: ``` Tunde & Ada's wedding ₦306,000 from 18 people — as you have recorded it. I cannot see your bank, so this is your word, not the bank's. ✅ Musa Bello — ₦20,000 ✅ Ada Okonkwo — ₦5,000 … Not yet (7) — Hauwa Musa, Tolu Ade, Grace Peter, … Close it with collected done. ``` Reply **`collected done`** when the collection is finished. Chattree gives you the final total and stops asking. ## How often it asks you Chattree checks in on its own — *"anyone paid since we last spoke?"* — after **two days**, then **five**, then **ten**. If you have not replied by the third, it stops and tells you once: > I have stopped asking about *Tunde & Ada's wedding*. Say **collected** whenever you want to pick > it up again. An owner who has not answered in ten days has moved on, and a reminder nobody acts on only teaches you to ignore the ones that matter. Picking it up again is one word. **The group is never told any of this.** A stalled collection is between you and Chattree; a message about one would read to the group as *your money is unaccounted for*. ## Commands | Command | What it does | | ------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | | **`collect`** | Lists your groups | | **`collect 1`** | Starts a collection for that group | | **`Musa paid 20k, Ada 5k`** | Records payments you have confirmed yourself | | **`collected`** | Shows the total, who is waiting, and who has not paid | | **`paid all`** / **`paid 1,3`** | Confirms what members have claimed | | **`collected done`** | Closes it and stops the asking | One collection per group at a time, so **`collected`** is never ambiguous about which one you mean. ## What it will not do * **It will not tell a member their payment arrived.** Asked *"have I paid?"*, it answers only what it actually knows — *"you told me you sent ₦20,000, the organiser has not confirmed it yet"* — because saying yes would be confirming a payment it has never seen. * **It will not message a member who has not written first.** A member has to start the conversation, and Chattree does not chase anyone for money. * **It will not post the paid list to the group.** Share it yourself with an [announcement](/docs/guides/announcements) if you want to. * **It will not count a claim as money.** Only your yes does that. Members are recognised by the phone number on your group's member list, which you can see on the group's dashboard page. Somebody Chattree has no record of is not answered about a collection at all.