Every group that handles members' money owes them a proper account at the annual general meeting. That means more than the treasurer standing up with a bag of till slips and M-Pesa messages. What members need to see is an income and expenditure statement: a single document showing every shilling that came in, every shilling that went out, and what the group has left. It answers the basic questions any member should ask. Where did our contributions go? How much did we lend? What did we spend? Are we ahead or behind? A box of receipts cannot answer those questions. A one-page statement can.
The statement starts with income. List contributions received during the period, loan repayments collected, any fines and any other money that came in. Then list expenditure: loans disbursed, running costs such as stationery or venue hire, bank charges if the group pays them, anything else the group spent. The difference is your surplus or deficit for the year. Add the opening balance at the start of the period and you arrive at the closing balance, which should match what the group actually holds in the bank or in the treasurer's till. If those two numbers do not agree, the treasurer has work to do before the AGM.
Preparing the statement from paper records takes hours. You go through the exercise book line by line, sorting contributions from repayments from expenses, adding columns, checking totals, writing it all out again neatly for the meeting. Then someone asks a question and you have to go back through the book to find the entry. If the records are incomplete or the treasurer has been slow to update them, the statement becomes guesswork. That is how disputes start. Members lose confidence and the committee spends the meeting defending the books instead of planning the year ahead.
Chamabora, a chama management app for Kenyan savings groups, generates the income and expenditure statement as a PDF from the live records. Because every contribution, loan repayment and expense is recorded and confirmed by two different officials as it happens, the figures are already in the system. The app sorts income from expenditure, totals each category and reconciles the closing balance against the cashbook. The statement is ready whenever the group needs it, whether that is for the AGM, a committee review or an unexpected question from a member. The treasurer downloads it, prints it or shares it, and walks into the meeting with the facts.
The same live records also produce a cashbook, an audit trail and member statements, all as PDF or spreadsheet. Members can see their own position at any time: what they have contributed, what they owe, any loans and repayments. Officials see the full picture. Because the app will not let anyone confirm their own transaction, and because the audit log of every financial change cannot be edited, the records carry their own assurance. The group still needs to count the cash and check it against the closing balance, but the statement itself is no longer a monthly scramble.
Chamabora costs ten shillings per member per month, counted from the register, with the first two months free. For example, a group of twenty members would pay two hundred shillings a month. Every chama is also free until 30 April 2027, with no card needed. If the subscription lapses, records stay readable and the group can still export them; only new entries pause. The app keeps the group's records but never holds or moves money, which stays in the group's bank, SACCO or treasurer's phone. Walking into the AGM with a printed statement and a cashbook, instead of a box of receipts, is the simplest way to show members their money has been handled with care.
Create your group on Chamabora at chamabora.co.ke: it is free until 30 April 2027, with no card needed. See what it does, the pricing, and the free guides, templates and calculators for chamas.
Promoted content. Chamabora is a product of Mycrea Technologies Ltd, which also designs and maintains Kijiji News.