The barbecue, the weekend away, the house rented between six: someone paid for the meat, someone else the petrol, someone else the rent, and by the end nobody knows who owes whom. This calculator sorts it out in the browser: enter the names and the expenses, it splits equally and gives you the minimum transfers. No account, nothing to install, and the result is shareable with a link.
The calculator
- Total$ 42,000
- Carla pays Ana$ 14,000
- Ben pays Ana$ 2,000
Educational tool. It splits equally; for splits by percentage or among some people, use a Kesef group.
How it's calculated
First everything is added up and divided by the number of people: that's each person's share. Then each person's balance is what they paid minus their share. Positive balance: they're owed; negative: they owe.
Worked example. Ana, Ben and Carla. Ana paid for dinner, $30,000; Ben the taxi, $12,000; Carla paid nothing. Total $42,000, $14,000 each. Balances: Ana +$16,000, Ben −$2,000, Carla −$14,000. Minimum transfers: Carla pays Ana $14,000, and Ben pays Ana $2,000. Two transfers, instead of the three or four you'd get with everyone paying everyone.
The minimum transfers come from always pairing the person who owes most with the person owed most, until everyone is at zero. With n people you never need more than n − 1 transfers. It's the same thing "simplify debts" does in a Kesef group.
What this calculator doesn't do
- Unequal splits: by percentage (whoever earns more puts in more), by shares (whoever ate for two) or among some people only (the wine is paid by those who drank it). Here everything is split equally among everyone.
- Tracking the group over time: the shared flat, the couple, the two-week trip. This is a snapshot; for the film you need a group.
- Expenses that log themselves: Mercado Pago payments that go to the group without being entered by hand.
A Kesef group does all of that, free for every participant: whoever receives the invite link joins without paying anything, logs their expenses and sees the same balance.
Track it in a Kesef group
If the shared expense is a one-off, this calculator is enough. If it repeats (the flat, the couple, the long trip), in Kesef you create a group, share the link and each person logs what they pay, with the split you choose expense by expense. The balance updates on its own and the app reminds whoever owes once a day.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to sign up?
No. The calculator runs in your browser: no account, nothing stored on any server, nothing to install. What you type stays in the page's address, which is what you can share.
How do I share the result?
With the "Copy link with the result" button or by copying the browser's address. Whoever opens that link sees the same names, expenses and transfers, and can change them.
Can I split an expense among only some people?
Not here: everything is split equally among all participants. To split an expense among some people, by percentage or by shares, use a Kesef group, where the split is chosen expense by expense.
Why does it give fewer transfers than I worked out?
Because it simplifies: if Ben owes Ana and Ana owes Carla, Ben pays Carla directly. It always pairs the person who owes most with the person owed most, so with n people there are never more than n − 1 transfers.