A spreadsheet template for group trip expenses

"Send me the photo, I'll put it in tonight," they say. Nobody puts it in tonight. Your sheet was lovely on day one — colour-coded tabs, a column for the currency, a total that worked out the per-person share on its own. By day three you are the only one who has opened it, the receipts are photographs in three different phones, and you have typed in 19 of them from a sun lounger, which is unpaid bookkeeping in a swimming costume for a company that does not exist. Enough of that!

Whether the sheet gets finished matters more than it sounds. When it doesn't, somebody is ninety euros down and says nothing about it, and some people never bring it up at all and carry a quiet resentment that outlasts the friendship. Let Split by Peanut do that bit instead. One link in the group chat, everyone adds what they paid themselves, in the currency they paid it in, no accounts and nothing to download; the room adds it up and nets it to a short list of who pays whom. Just send the link and get back in the sea.

When a spreadsheet still wins

Some groups want the formulas, and a sheet gives you them. You can put a column in for anything: who slept in the room with the balcony, the deposit one person paid in March and got back in August. The file is still on your drive in two years.

A room does none of that. It counts what people paid, it nets the total down to who pays whom, and it holds up to twenty people. If somebody in the group likes keeping the sheet, keep the sheet.

Setting one up

  1. Start a room

    Name it after the trip and pick the currency most of the money goes out in.

  2. Paste the link into the group chat

    Whoever opens it types a name and is in. Nobody makes an account, and the link is the key, so the chat is where it wants to live rather than your own browser.

  3. Everyone adds their own as they pay

    The food shop and the museum tickets one person bought for everybody, entered by whoever was holding the card. The totals move while you are still at the table.
    Mo adds the ferry tickets on the ferry.

Good to know

Split is free forever, with nothing to upgrade to. Peanut makes it to introduce people to Peanut, which is how Split gets paid for, so there is no paid tier and nothing to move behind one later.

It takes 158 currencies rather than every currency, converted at the day's rate, which is indicative rather than your bank's. Split does not check with a bank and cannot: two people settle however they settle, and one of them taps to record it. Recording that tap needs a connection, on purpose, because a payment written down twice is worse than one written down late.

Start a room for the trip

Name it, paste the link, and the typing stops being your turn.

Start a split

Questions

Is there a spreadsheet template for group trip expenses?
There are hundreds, and for two people in one currency a good one is enough. Starting a room mid-trip is ordinary. Type in the ones you have already recorded, paste the link, and the rest arrives from other people.
How do I work out who owes who at the end of a trip?
The room does it as people type, so the number is right on day three as well. It nets the debts down, so the group makes two or three transfers instead of twenty.
How do we split petrol money on a road trip?
Add each fill as an expense under whoever paid at the pump, rather than keeping a tally for the end. Expenses typed with no signal wait on your phone and go when it comes back, and the queue survives closing the tab.