Splitting expenses on a trip

On a trip, money gets messy fast: one person books the hotel, someone else fronts the rental car, a third keeps buying the groceries and coffees. By day three nobody remembers who paid for what. The fair outcome isn't "everyone pays an equal total" — it's that everyone ends up having spent the same on shared costs, with a few transfers at the end to even it out.

A simple way to run trip money

• Log each cost as it happens. Add the amount, who paid, and untick anyone who sat that one out (the person who skipped the paid tour, say).
• Don't pre-divide. Let whoever is nearest the till just pay; the math evens out at the end. Chasing exact change all trip is the thing that ruins the mood.
• Settle once. At the end, splittab collapses every IOU into the fewest transfers — usually two or three payments instead of a dozen.

Handling the awkward cases

Someone joined late? Only tick them into the expenses from the day they arrived. One room was pricier? Add it split only between the people who slept in it. A group dinner where two people didn't drink? Add the food as one shared expense and the bar tab as a second expense split only among the drinkers.

Split a bill now →