Last updated September 9, 2026
How SplitRound behaves
Every rule the app follows, in the order you tend to run into them. If the app does something you did not expect, the reason is on this page.
Groups, and who they belong to
- Whose group is it?
- Whoever created it. That is written down when the group is made, and every rule below about deleting, archiving and removing people follows from it.
- Can I delete a group I did not create?
- No, but you can leave it. Only the person who created the group is shown the delete button, and the server turns the request down for anyone else.
- Can I archive a group I did not create?
- No — archiving closes the group for everyone in it, so it belongs to whoever created it, the same as deleting. You can still read an archived group and settle up in it.
- What happens if the person who created the group leaves it?
- The group is passed to another member, so it never ends up with nobody able to look after it. It goes to the longest-standing member still in the group, skipping accounts that have been closed, and everyone left is told in the activity feed.
- Can another member remove the group’s creator?
- No. Any other member can be removed by anyone in the group, once their balance is settled — but the creator can only take themselves out. Otherwise removing them would be a way of taking the group off them.
- Can I remove someone who still owes money?
- No. Settle up with them first, or let them settle up, and then remove them. The same rule stops you leaving a group with an open balance.
- Can somebody outside the group see it, or change it?
- No. Everything a group holds — its expenses, its balances, its comments, even its name — is readable and writable only by the people in it. A group’s id is no kind of secret: it travels in links, in exports and in bug reports, so knowing one gets you nowhere on its own.
- What is a personal group?
- A group of one, for tracking your own spending — receipts, warranties, monthly totals — rather than splitting anything. Nobody else is ever added to it, so nothing can be owed in it, and the settling-up screens are hidden.
- Can anybody see my personal expenses?
- No. A personal group is private to the person who created it: it is a group of one, and the server refuses to put a second member in it — so nobody else can open it, or the receipts and warranties inside it.
Leaving, archiving and deleting
- What happens if I leave a group?
- You come off the member list, and the group carries on without you. Its expenses and its history stay for everyone else — including the ones you entered and the ones you were part of, because that is what the other members’ balances are worked out from.
- Can I leave a group I still owe money in?
- No. Leaving with an open balance would strand the money: the debt would be recorded against somebody who is no longer there to settle it. Cent-level rounding does not count as a balance.
- I am square overall — why does it still say I cannot leave?
- Because “square overall” is not the same as square with everyone. With debt simplification switched off you can owe one person and be owed by another, and net to zero: two open debts, not a clean exit. What is checked is the group’s own settle-up view, line by line.
- What happens when the last member leaves?
- The group goes with them. A group nobody is in cannot be reached by anyone, so it is deleted rather than left behind.
- What does archiving a group do?
- It puts a finished group away without deleting it. Everyone keeps the history and can still settle up, but no new expenses can be added, recurring expenses stop posting, and settle-up reminders skip it. It drops out of the active list, and the creator can reopen it at any time.
- What does deleting a group do?
- It removes the group for every member at once — the expenses, the balances and the history go with it. There is no undo in the app, which is why archiving exists for a group that is merely finished.
Expenses and how they are split
- Who can add, edit or delete an expense?
- Anyone in the group. An expense belongs to the group rather than to whoever typed it in, so a mistake can be fixed by whoever spots it.
- How is an expense split?
- Equally among the members by default. You can also set each person’s exact amount, or give them shares — two for an adult, one for a child. Every split is worked out to the cent and always adds up to the total.
- Can the group decide how it splits, once?
- Yes. A group can be set to divide every new expense by shares, by percentages, or between the households, and whoever adds an expense is still free to change that one expense. A table of shares or percentages is drawn for the people in the group at the time, so adding or removing anybody puts the group back on equal parts — four percentages say nothing about five people, and reinterpreting them would be the one way to get somebody’s share wrong without anyone choosing it.
- Six of us, but we do not settle up as six. Can it split by household?
- Yes. Say who lives with whom — each person on a row, indented under the household they belong to — and every household pays for everyone under its roof. Two couples and a family of two are three parties, and each new expense reads its weights off that arrangement instead of anybody working out shares by hand. Changing who lives where never re-splits the expenses already entered, and the app says so before it saves.
- Somebody in the group pays for nothing. Do they have to be in the split?
- No. A member can be left out of the accounts and keep everything else — reading the group, adding expenses, commenting. Taking somebody out is refused in three cases: while anything is owed to or by them, while they carry a figure in an expense already entered, and when they are the last person still sharing. Coming back into the accounts is always allowed, which is the way out of the first two.
- What is the difference between exact amounts and shares?
- Shares stay correct when the amount changes: put the rent up and it redistributes in the same proportion. Exact amounts are what you typed, so after a change they would no longer add up to the total.
- Can I log an expense in another currency?
- Yes. Log it in the currency you actually paid in; the rate into the group’s own currency is recorded with the expense, at the time. Rates are refreshed daily, and because each expense keeps the rate it was entered with, an old total never quietly changes.
- Which date does an expense use?
- When the money was spent, if you say so — a receipt from last week is dated last week. Leave it and the date the expense was entered is used instead. Dates more than a couple of days in the future are refused as typos.
- I deleted an expense by mistake. Is it gone?
- No. A deleted expense drops out of every balance and total straight away, but it can be restored from the group’s activity feed.
- Can I import expenses from a spreadsheet?
- Yes, from a CSV or Excel file, and a Splitwise export is read as it comes. The names in the file are matched against your own friends and you confirm each one before anything is written. But an import replaces every expense in the group, it does not add to them: it is meant for filling a new group from elsewhere, not for topping one up.
- What happens to the expenses of somebody who leaves?
- They stay exactly as they are. If that person closes their account, their name is replaced everywhere with “Former member”, and the amounts are untouched.
Settling up, and paying each other
- How are the payments that clear a group worked out?
- Debts are simplified by default: rather than six people paying five, the settle-up screen shows the shortest set of payments that leaves everybody square. A group can switch that off in its settings, and then each debt stands between the two people it arose between.
- Can we pay each other through MB WAY?
- Not the money itself — it holds nothing it could send it with, no card and no bank connection. For a Portuguese mobile number in a group that counts in euros it goes as far as the handoff honestly can: it shows the other person’s MB WAY number, puts it on the clipboard, and opens MB WAY. The transfer is made there, because MB WAY takes neither an amount nor a recipient from a link, and the payment is recorded here once you say it is sent.
Recurring expenses, budgets and warranties
- What does a recurring expense do?
- It posts an expense for you on a schedule — weekly, monthly or yearly — split the same way you set the rule up. Each occurrence lands as a normal expense that anyone can edit or delete.
- Can I skip one occurrence?
- Yes. Skipping moves the rule past its next date only; the one after that is unaffected. You can also pause a rule and switch it back on later.
- Do recurring expenses keep posting in an archived group?
- No. Archiving stops them, and reopening the group starts them again.
- What counts towards a group’s budget?
- Real spending only, in the group’s own currency. Payments between members do not count — settling up is not spending. A weekly, monthly or yearly budget is a window that moves; “all time” is a single cap on everything the group ever spends, which is what a trip or a project wants.
- Where do I see what a group spends, rather than who owes what?
- On the group’s totals screen: the last months as bars, each holding your own share inside the group’s total, and spending by category with what percentage of the period each one took — for this month, or for everything since the group started. Payments between members are left out of both, because settling up moves money rather than spends it, and an expense logged in another currency counts at the rate stored on it.
- Can I add my own expense categories?
- Yes. Custom categories belong to the group, so every member sees the same list, and there is room for forty of them alongside the built-in ones.
- What does a warranty on an expense record?
- Only the two things you actually know: when the item was bought and how many months it is covered for. The expiry date is worked out from those wherever it is shown, so correcting the purchase date can never leave a stale end date behind.
- When does a warranty reminder arrive?
- Thirty days before the cover runs out, to whoever switched the reminder on, once. Change the dates and it is armed again for the new deadline.
People, friends and invitations
- Can I split with someone who has not installed the app?
- Yes. Add them with just a name and split with them straight away. They hold a place in the group until somebody claims it.
- How does an invitation work?
- They get an eight-character code to type in, or a link that carries it. Claiming it attaches the place you made for them to their real account, and the whole history they were already part of comes with it.
- Does a friendship outlive the group we met in?
- Yes. Whoever you bring into a group goes onto your own friends list and stays there after the group is archived, left or deleted. Only your list changes — being added to a group is not a claim on anybody else’s.
- What does blocking somebody do?
- It hides them from your own lists. It changes nothing inside a group and moves no money: expenses you already share, and the balances that come from them, stay exactly as they are.
- What happens when I report somebody?
- The report is written down and sent to support, with the groups the two of you share so it can be looked into. Support can block an account outright, which stops it being signed in to at all.
- Can I report somebody I do not share a group with?
- No. Reporting is for people you actually share something with.
Notifications
- What can the app notify me about?
- Five kinds of thing, each of which you can switch off on its own: expenses, comments, payments, members joining or leaving, and reminders. There is a master switch above them for all of it.
- What does the “Remind” button do?
- It sends one person a private reminder that they owe you in one group. You can nudge the same person once a day at most — after that the button says when it is available again.
- Does the settle-up reminder include archived groups?
- No. An archived group is finished business, and nudging about it would be noise.
Your account and your data
- What happens when I close my account?
- Your personal data is erased immediately — name, contacts, credentials, devices, friendships. The expenses you shared with a group stay with that group, because other people’s balances are worked out from them, with your name replaced everywhere by “Former member”. The account deletion page lists exactly what goes and what stays.
- Does SplitRound move money?
- No. It records who owes what and works out the simplest way to clear it. You pay each other however you already do, and there is no bank or card connection to give it.
- Who can see what I put in?
- The members of the groups you share, and nobody else. What is collected and why is set out in the Privacy Policy.
Something here not matching what the app does is a bug in one of the two. Write to joaoabreu.wd@gmail.com and say which.