Splitting trip costs with friends who aren't in your household

Four friends rent a cabin for the weekend. One person books it, another buys the groceries, a third pays for gas. By Sunday night nobody remembers who covered what, and a few of the people on the trip have never shared a ledger with you.

Putting all of that in your household's month does not work. The friends are not housemates, and a $640 cabin would sit in your monthly totals next to the groceries. A trip needs a ledger of its own.

A trip is a venture

EvenHearth keeps a trip in a venture, which is a ledger with its own people and its own close. You make one with Add a trip. A venture sits next to the monthly ledger, so a trip's costs stay out of the month's shared total and the month's close.

A venture can also be a project, such as a renovation. The same structure covers both, and a Maliko Labs post on a backyard renovation explains why we built it that way.

Friends join as guests

The people on the trip do not need to be in your household, and they do not need accounts. You send each person an invitation link. They open it, type the name the others on the trip should see, and continue as a guest.

A guest sees that trip and nothing else. Your household and your month stay out of view. Guests can add expenses to the trip, so the person who bought the gas can enter it from their own device.

The free plan holds up to five people on a trip, counting you. It runs one active trip at a time, and a free trip closes by itself 90 days after it starts. The pricing page has the current plans.

How the trip divides

A household usually has an arrangement of its own, such as 60/40 by income. Four friends rarely do, so a trip with guests on it divides evenly by default. Everyone on the trip carries the same share of every shared cost.

An item that belongs to one person still comes off first, the same as on a household receipt. Our guide to carving a personal item off a grocery receipt covers how that works.

A worked example

Dana organizes the trip and is a member of the household. Lee, Omar and Ines join as guests. Over the weekend four expenses go in.

The trip cost $1,132.00. Split four ways, each person's share is $283.00. Compare that with what each person paid:

Dana is owed $357.00, and the other three owe a combined $357.00. The trip settles in three transfers, each to Dana: Omar sends $191.00, Lee sends $94.60 and Ines sends $71.40.

Closing the trip and settling up

When the weekend is over, End trip locks the trip so no more expenses can go in. Ending a trip does not touch the debts. Settling up stays open, so a friend can pay back the following week. If drafts are still waiting, the close waits for them.

Settling works the way it does in a household. Each person pays outside the app, marks the transfer paid, and the person receiving marks it received. Both confirmations are needed, so nobody can clear a debt alone. EvenHearth never moves money.

If you close a trip too early, you can reopen it. Transfers nobody has paid yet are cancelled and worked out again. Payments already marked paid stay as they are.

Keeping the month and the trip apart

Because the trip has its own close, you can settle it on Sunday evening and still close your household's month on the first. Dana's cabin payment shows up in the trip's ledger and not in the household's groceries.

For the full picture of how trips work, the trips page goes through setting one up. If you also share a home, how it works follows a shared month from the first receipt to the last transfer.