How to split bills with roommates

In a shared flat the money questions come back every month: rent, electricity, internet, the cleaning things somebody bought again. None of them is large, and that is the trouble — small sums are the ones nobody writes down and everybody remembers differently.

What to agree on once

How the rent is split. Equal rooms, equal parts. Unequal rooms are easier with shares than with sums: the large room counts as two shares, the small ones as one each. The shares hold when the rent changes.

What counts as shared. Internet and cleaning things, usually yes. Food — only if you really cook together. An expense that is not everybody's is split among those who use it.

When you settle. Once a month, after the bills arrive, works better than passing coins after every purchase.

Keeping the list in Telegram

Create a group in SplitKit for the flat and send the others the link, or add the bot to your flat's chat and send /split. Nobody installs anything.

Rent and bills: whoever pays the landlord records the amount and splits it by shares, or by exact amounts if the bill says who used what.
Shopping: take a photo of the receipt; the total is read on the phone and put into the form. Check it before saving.
Only some of you: tick the people the expense was for.

Everybody sees their own balance and a short list of who pays whom.

The group screen: your balance, who pays whom, and the expenses

Settling up

On the day you agreed, each of you opens the group and pays what the list says: "Pay" leads to PayPal, Revolut or the details for a bank transfer. Then the debt is marked as paid, and the balances start from even.

Good to know

Repeating expenses are entered each time. There are no automatic monthly expenses: the rent is recorded when it is paid.
The bot does not chase debtors. It announces new expenses; it sends no reminders about what is owed.
Payment details are seen only by those who should pay you, by the app's calculation. Entering them is optional.
SplitKit does not move or hold money, and one group has one currency.
When somebody moves out, they settle up first. "Delete account" then erases their name and payment details; the amounts stay in the group without the name, so the others' balances do not change.

One flat is one group, and up to 3 groups of your own are free. Open SplitKit in Telegram.

More: splitting a bill when the shares are not equal and how to work out who owes whom.