Group Trip Cost Splitter

Group trips end with somebody doing painful maths in a notes app. This splitter does it properly instead: log who paid for what, mark exactly who shares each expense, and read off balances that sum to exactly $0.00 — with a settle-up list that clears the whole group in a handful of transfers.

It covers groups of up to 8 people — the roster, the eight split columns and the settle-up formulas are all built for 8, and this listing states that limit plainly.

The sample weekend is honest. Ava fronted $915.00 of the $1,310.00 total; Elif paid nothing at all and owes the most ($236.00), printed in words. The boat rental splits only among the 4 who went; dinner splits among only 3 of the 5. The balances sum to $0.00 — the sheet prints that check itself — and the group settles in 4 transfers instead of up to 10 pairwise ones.

HOW IT WORKS
– ‘Shared Expenses’: one row per expense — date, description, who paid, amount — plus a split column per person (P1–P8, matching the roster order). Type 1 for everyone who shares that expense; subsets are fully supported, and the equal share per person prints on every row so any line can be audited by hand.
– ‘Balances & Settle Up’: per person — total paid, total share owed, and net, with a status line in words (‘Is owed $619.00’, ‘Owes $236.00’). The totals row checks itself: paid = owed, nets = $0.00, in print.
– The settle-up list passes money along the roster — at most 7 transfers for 8 people, never one per pair — each line clearing the running balance, so everyone ends exactly square to the cent.

WHAT’S INSIDE
– Shared-expense log for 25 expenses with named-subset splits (sample: 7 expenses, $1,310.00)
– Per-person balances that sum to exactly $0.00, with the check printed on the sheet
– A settle-up list of 4 transfers for the sample’s 5 people (up to 7 for a full group of 8)
– Honest sample data: the person who paid nothing owes the most, and it says so
– Plus the standard Expense Log, zero-based Monthly Budget, Dashboard and Monthly Summary tabs

Shares are rounded to the cent; if one of your splits ever leaves a cent of rounding, the check line shows it instead of hiding it — adjust the last share by that cent and it clears.

How it works: the seven tabs are Start Here (your settings + step-by-step), the two feature tabs, Expense Log, Monthly Budget (zero-based), Dashboard and Monthly Summary. Yellow cells are the only places you type — every yellow value is your own entry. Formula cells are locked (password: sheetdaily, disclosed on the Start Here tab) and every formula is error-wrapped, so an untouched sheet reads blank instead of showing error codes. Instant download, ready for Excel and Google Sheets.

A note on the sample data: every price and date in this workbook is example data, typed in by hand to show you how the sheet behaves. Replace it with your own.