Vaqui is now Waiting for Review — question about expense-sharing apps 🐮

Question

ToDoApp OP

Created 3w

Replies 2

Boosts 0

Participants 1

Hi everyone!

I'm back again! 😄

A few months ago I posted here after submitting my first iOS app, after previously publishing it on Google Play. That experience was really helpful, so I'm hoping to get some advice from the community again.

I've just submitted my new app, Vaqui, and it's currently Waiting for Review.

Vaqui is an expense-sharing app for groups, mainly designed for trips.

For example, three friends travel together and pay for different things:

Pepe pays for the hotel. Sandra pays for groceries. Marcos pays for dinner. Everyone participates in different expenses. Vaqui calculates the resulting balances and suggests who should transfer money to whom.

The app supports multiple currencies and stores the exchange rate used when an expense is recorded.

The important part is that Vaqui does not process or hold money. It doesn't provide a wallet, banking account, payment processing, cards, or financial transactions.

If someone owes another person money, Vaqui simply tells them something like:

"Marcos owes Sandra $15,000."

They make the actual transfer themselves using their bank or payment provider, outside Vaqui. The users can then mark the payment as made/received inside the app so the group knows what has already been settled.

This made me wonder about something before the review starts:

Would an app like Vaqui normally be considered a financial-services app by App Review, simply because it calculates debts/balances between users?

Or is it generally treated as an expense-management / expense-sharing utility as long as it doesn't actually process, hold, or transfer money?

I'm asking because I want to make sure I've understood the relevant App Review guidelines correctly rather than discovering during review that I've misunderstood something obvious. 😅

The current App Store Connect information is:

App: Vaqui Bundle ID: mobi.todoapp.vaqui Apple ID: 6802352647 Status: Waiting for Review Platform: iOS / Flutter

If anyone has submitted an app with similar functionality, I'd really appreciate hearing about your experience.

Thanks!

Greetings from Córdoba, Argentina 🇦🇷

And yes... once again I'm waiting for that little "In Review" notification. 🤞😂

Answer 1

ToDoApp OP

3w

Just a small follow-up while Vaqui is waiting for review. 🙂

I realized that the important distinction in my question may be whether calculating a balance between users is considered a financial service, even when the app never touches the money itself.

In Vaqui, the actual payment always happens outside the app. Vaqui only records the expense, calculates the resulting balances, and optionally lets users mark an external payment as settled.

If anyone has experience submitting a similar expense-sharing app, I'd really appreciate hearing how App Review treated it.

Thanks!

Answer 2

ToDoApp OP

3w

Update: Vaqui v1.0.1 is now available on Google Play — iOS review pending 🐮🚀

A quick update to my previous post!

Vaqui v1.0 has now been approved and published on the App Store, so my original question about expense-sharing apps and App Review has officially survived its first review. 😄

I've also submitted Vaqui v1.0.1 for iOS review, while the same update has already been approved on Google Play.

The new version adds several improvements:

• 📦 Group Management — archive completed trips/events and leave groups securely once balances are settled.

• 📊 Smart Activity Log — track exchange-rate changes, expense edits, and transactions in real time.

• 🔒 Read-Only Mode — archived groups are protected from further changes, while PDF reports remain available.

• ⚡ Improved WhatsApp invitations — smoother deep linking when joining a group.

• 🛠️ Performance & stability improvements.

The iOS version is currently Waiting for Review.

It's been interesting to see how the same app behaves across Google Play and the App Store, especially with features involving shared expenses, balances, currencies and external payments.

I'll update this thread again once v1.0.1 finishes the iOS review. 🤞

Thanks again to everyone who shared advice on the original post!

Greetings from Córdoba, Argentina 🇦🇷🐮