Fewer transfers, same fairness
Settling expense by expense is how six people end up making nine transfers over a single evening. The calculator nets everyone’s position first - what they paid minus their share of what they used - and pays the deficits straight to the credits. A weekend with the house on one card, the food shop on another and fuel on a third usually settles in two or three transfers, most of them pointing at whoever booked the house.
Netting changes only the number of transactions, never anyone’s final position - so there is nothing in the method to argue about, only the arithmetic it saves you from doing.
The person who books is owed the most, longest
Whoever fronts the accommodation is out of pocket weeks before anyone else spends a penny, and debts get harder to collect as they age - a month on, chasing feels like rudeness and writing it off feels easier. Either collect a deposit when people commit or settle within days of getting home. There is no good third option.
Custom split is the polite answer to the classic disputes before they start: the friend who arrived Saturday morning does not belong on Friday’s dinner, and the person who skipped the boat trip should not fund it. Take them off those lines and there is nothing to have the awkward conversation about.
Settlement in front of the whole group
This page is a private scratchpad: close the tab and the balances are gone, and only you ever saw them. When repayment stretches over a week - and after a trip it usually does - that means you become the group’s debt collector. On a Status Social event the same tracker sits with the guest list and the photos: every balance is visible to the people it concerns, and each repayment is marked off in a view the whole group shares.