Adding and removing group members mid-cycle
Groups are not frozen the moment a cycle opens — a member may need to join partway through, or leave before the share-out. Ustawi handles both as mid-cycle membership changes, pro-rating the shares already in play so the change is never a manual reconciliation done on the side.
Eligibility comes first
Who can join after a cycle has started depends on the group's rules. A group's constitution may allow mid-cycle joins freely, restrict them to a window, or bar them entirely. Ustawi supports mid-cycle membership changes, but the group's eligibility rules govern whether a given join or exit is allowed — the system does not override the group's own constitution.
Why pro-rating matters
The share-out weights each member's payout by the shares they accumulated across the cycle. A member who joins late has not had the chance to buy shares in the earlier meetings; a member who exits early stops buying. Pro-rating their shares against the portion of the cycle they participated in keeps the eventual share-out fair without anyone recalculating balances by hand.
- 1Add a joining memberRecord the new member against the open cycle. Their shares accumulate from their join point, and the system pro-rates so their standing reflects the shares actually purchased.
- 2Remove an exiting memberRecord the exit. The shares they accumulated up to that point are settled according to the group's rules rather than erased.
- 3Let the ledger reflect itThe change flows through the group's fund ledger, so the cycle position and the eventual share-out both stay consistent.
A mid-cycle change is a membership event within the running cycle — it does not reopen the cycle's founding settings or start a new cycle.