Splitwise is a useful app that helps you track shared expenses and split bills when traveling with a group of people. It lets you and your friends add various bills and keep track of who owes who, and then it helps you to settle up with each other.
We’ve used it several times, even on a trip that included 12 people. It makes sorting out expenses and settling up a breeze.
The “settle up” feature is really convenient because it avoids needless transactions. Say for example, Melissa owes CC $20, and CC owes Trish $20. Instead of Melissa paying CC, and then CC paying Trish, settle up totally eliminates CC from the equation. Melissa just pays Trish $20 and that’s all there is to it.
The beauty of using Splitwise is it allows you to split expenses between certain people and not others, split costs by percentage, or split costs by dollar amount, so allocating expenses is easy.
Here, I’ll walk you through how to use Splitwise and how to split expenses that aren’t necessarily split evenly or that may not be attributable to every person in the group.
To show you how it works, I’ll use my recent vacation as an example. Me and three friends recently vacationed together in Lake Lure. We agreed prior to the trip that rather than splitting the cost of every grocery run or restaurant bill, we‘d settle up our finances after the trip using Splitwise. Here’s how it works:
Step 1:
If you don’t already have one, create an account.
Step 2:
Create a Group
Step 3:
Add all travelers to your “Lake Lure” vacation group using their email addresses. My group included myself, Alanna, CC, and Trish. Be sure to select “save” after every entry.
Step 4:
Each group member should enter the receipts for which they paid. Below is a list of our expenses. As you can see Melissa (me) paid for three expenses, while CC and Trish each paid for one, and Alanna for two.
Step 5:
Now let’s get started and add the first line-item expense. Just select “Add Expense.”
Step 6: Add the details including date, purpose, attendees, and cost. The default setting is set to split expenses equally, and since this “grocery” expense is attributable with the entire group, that’s what we want. Notice it says this expense is split “equally” at $40.02 per person. Now all there is to do is “save” the entry.
*Note above where it says “add image/notes.” If you choose to do so, you can upload a copy of the receipt here.
Step 6:
Now let’s go ahead and enter expense line item two, dinner at Chevy’s paid for by me. Notice that my husband attended this dinner with CC, Alanna, and Myself. Therefore, I’ll need to pay for 50%, while Alanna and CC will each pay 25%. So, we’ll enter the details similar to the way we did on the first entry, except that we need to select the “equally” icon in order to divide the expense appropriately.
Now, select the “%” icon that will allow a split by percentage. Once you’ve allocated the expenses, be sure to select “save”.
Step 7:
Now let’s go ahead and enter line item three paid for by me. This one’s a little trickier because as you can see, Trish wasn’t present for two of the meals, so we’re going to need to account for that.
To make things easier and more straightforward, I’m going to enter this as two entries as follows:
The first entry of $176 is a simple equal split as shown below:
Step 8:
Since the second entry of $88 should exclude Trish, we’re going to need to enter the details and then select “equally.”
Step 9:
After selecting the “equally” icon, you’ll need to “uncheck” Trish since she is not responsible for this expense. It will now be allocated equally between Me, Alanna and CC. Again, be sure to hit “save”.
Step 10:
Once the other group members have added their expenses, select “Settle up” and Splitwise will do all of the work for you, telling you who and how much you owe, as well as who owes you.
While this isn’t my group’s information, the settlement page will look something like this:
So, if you’re looking for an easy and convenient way to split expenses, whether it be for a vacation, housing expenses, or other shared expenses, give Splitwise a try.