Pay Splitting
"Your paycheck, auto-split. Savings, taxes, bills, and investments handled before you can spend a dime."
The Idea
An automated financial distribution layer that intercepts every paycheck before it reaches your checking account, splitting it into predefined buckets—taxes, bills, savings, investments, and discretionary spending—so users never have to manually move money or resist the temptation to overspend. The product targets the 68% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck by making disciplined money management happen automatically at the deposit level, not after the fact.
Who It's For
- Primary: Salaried millennials/Gen-Z (25-40) earning $50K-$150K who know they should save more but can't resist lifestyle spending - Secondary: Freelancers and solopreneurs who need Profit First discipline without the spreadsheet
What's Built
The prototype will simulate the paycheck-splitting experience end-to-end without requiring actual banking licenses or money movement. Real Plaid/payroll integrations are out of scope; the MVP proves the UX and value proposition.
In scope:
- User registration and authentication
- Onboarding wizard: income input, pay frequency, and allocation rule setup
- Dashboard showing bucket balances, split visualizations, and recent activity
- Paycheck simulation: user can "deposit" a paycheck and watch it split in real time
- Allocation rule editor: adjust percentages across buckets (taxes, bills, savings, investments, spending)
- Transaction history with per-bucket filtering
- "Founder Mode" toggle that applies Profit First splits (Revenue → Profit → Owner Pay → Tax → OpEx)
- Basic tax withholding estimator based on income bracket and filing status
Out of scope (post-MVP):
- Real bank/payroll connections (Plaid, Finch, Pinwheel)
- Actual money movement (ACH, virtual accounts)
- Investment routing to Wealthfront/Vanguard
- Bill pay integrations
- Mobile apps