Shared Expenses
Split bills with others, track who owes what, and settle debts, all within your expense tracker.
How Splitting Works
Retrospend uses a person-centric debt model. When you pay for something shared, you record the full expense and specify how it's split among participants. Each person's share becomes a debt they owe you, and Retrospend tracks the running balance.
Split Modes
Four ways to divide an expense:
Equal
Everyone pays the same amount. The total is divided evenly among all participants.
Exact Amounts
Specify the exact dollar amount each person owes. Useful when items have different prices.
Percentage
Assign a percentage to each person. Percentages must total 100%.
Shares
Assign share units (e.g. 2, 1, 1). Useful when one person should pay double.
Adding People
You can split expenses with two types of people:
- Retrospend users: search by name or email. They get in-app notifications and can verify/dispute their share.
- Shadow contacts: people without a Retrospend account. You track the debt on their behalf; settle up externally.
Verification
When you share an expense with another Retrospend user, they receive a notification and can either verify (accept) or dispute the amount. Disputed expenses are flagged so you can discuss and adjust. This prevents one-sided debt tracking and keeps both parties in sync.
Settlement
When it's time to settle up, Retrospend shows the net balance between you and each person. Record a settlement to zero out the balance. Settlements support payment links (Venmo, PayPal, etc.) so you can share a pay-me link directly from the app.
Guest Participation
People without a Retrospend account can participate in shared expenses through magic links. Send them a link and they get a guest session with just their name and email. No signup, no password. Guests can view their shares, accept or dispute amounts, and see project activity. If they decide to create a full account later, their guest history carries over.
Auto-Verification
Shared expenses that go unresponded for 7 days are automatically accepted. This prevents stale pending shares from blocking settlements. The original sharer gets a notification when auto-acceptance happens.
With or Without Projects
You can split expenses two ways: quick splits (no project needed) or project-based splits. Quick splits are fastest for one-off bills. Projects are better when you have many shared expenses with the same group over time. Both types feed into the same per-person balance, so it doesn't matter which approach you use for a given expense.
Tips
"They owe full amount"
Per-person settlement
Projects