Split holiday costs without a spreadsheet or an argument
Somebody always pays for the villa. Somebody else gets the taxis. A third person quietly buys most of the groceries and never mentions it. By Friday nobody has any idea who is up and who is down.
Holiday Board keeps the running ledger so the conversation at the end is thirty seconds long.
Log it as it happens
Add what it was, how much, which currency, who paid and who it was for. That takes about ten seconds standing outside a restaurant, which is the only moment anyone will ever actually do it.
You can link an expense to a plan, so the boat trip money sits with the boat trip.
Split it however it actually happened
Custom amounts have to add up to the total, and the app tells you when they do not, because an expense that does not balance is how these things go wrong.
- Equally between everyone on the trip
- Equally between just the people who went
- Custom amounts when the bill was not even: Sarah €50, Amy €30, Katie €40, Jess €60
The worked example
Sarah pays €180 for dinner. Four people ate. Her own share is €45, so she is owed €135 and everyone else owes €45. That is the arithmetic everyone does badly on a fourth glass of wine, done properly.
Settle up in the fewest payments
Rather than listing every individual debt between every pair of people, Holiday Board nets it all off and gives you the shortest set of transfers that clears everything. Four separate debts often collapse into two payments.
Mark one as paid and the ledger updates. Holiday Board does not move money itself, it just tells you exactly who should send what to whom.
Currencies that do not drift
Pay in euros, dollars and pounds on the same trip and everything still balances. Each expense keeps its original amount and currency, plus the exchange rate at the moment you entered it.
That rate is locked to that expense forever. Rates moving next Tuesday does not retroactively change what Monday's dinner cost, which is the behaviour you want from anything that touches money.
Questions
- Is expense splitting on the free tier?
- Yes. A free holiday holds two people, so it is a small version of the thing, but the splitting, the multiple currencies and the settle up all work. The £6.99 Holiday Pass is for getting the rest of the group on.
- Can Holiday Board transfer the money?
- No, and it deliberately does not try to. It works out who owes whom, and you pay each other however you normally do.
- What if someone leaves the trip?
- Expenses they were part of stay on the ledger, so the balances still add up correctly.
- What exchange rates do you use?
- European Central Bank reference rates. Your own bank or card will apply its own rate and fees, which is worth remembering before anyone argues about a few pence.
Know who owes what before you land
Log spending as it happens and settle up in two payments instead of eight.
Create your Holiday BoardFree to start. No card needed. £6.99 per holiday if you want the lot.