How to calculate who owes what
Three friends, a weekend away, a dozen receipts paid by whoever had the card out. On the way home somebody asks: "So who owes whom?" Here is a way to answer that always comes out even. It needs a sheet of paper, or a spreadsheet.
Step 1. Write down every expense
For each one you need three things: who paid, how much, and who it was for. The third is the one people forget: a taxi two of you took is not everybody's expense.
| Expense | Paid by | Amount | For whom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dinner | Anna | 90.00 | all three |
| Taxi | You | 25.50 | you and Boris |
| Groceries | Anna | 24.00 | all three |
Step 2. Find each person's share
Split each expense among the people it was for: dinner is 30.00 each, the taxi 12.75 each for two, the groceries 8.00 each.
Then add up, for every person, what they paid and what their shares come to:
| Paid | Share | Balance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna | 114.00 | 38.00 | +76.00 |
| You | 25.50 | 50.75 | −25.25 |
| Boris | 0.00 | 50.75 | −50.75 |
The balance is paid minus share. A plus means the others owe this person; a minus means this person owes. The balances always add up to zero — if they do not, an expense was entered twice or a share was missed.
Step 3. Settle with few payments
Do not pay back expense by expense: that is how five people end up making twenty transfers. Look only at the balances. Everyone with a minus pays, everyone with a plus receives:
- You pay Anna 25.25.
- Boris pays Anna 50.75.
Two payments, and everybody is even. With more people, take the largest debt and the largest claim, settle as much of them as you can against each other, and repeat.
Where it goes wrong
- Nobody wrote it down at the time. A week later the receipts are gone and the amounts are guesses.
- An expense was split among everyone when only some took part.
- Cents. 100.00 for three is 33.34 + 33.33 + 33.33, not three times 33.33. Somebody has to carry the extra cent, or the balances will not add up.
The same trip in SplitKit
SplitKit does these three steps inside Telegram. Each of you records what they paid — by hand or from a photo of the receipt — and says who it was for. The app keeps everyone's balance and a short list of who pays whom.
The numbers on the picture are the ones from the tables above. "Pay" takes you to PayPal, Revolut or the details for a bank transfer; SplitKit itself does not move or hold money. One group has one currency, and everybody in it needs Telegram.
Up to 3 groups of your own are free. Open SplitKit in Telegram.