Group Debt Settlement Generator

What this generator does

Totals what everyone paid, divides it into equal whole-penny shares with the remainder distributed a penny at a time, and computes each person's balance. It then repeatedly has the largest debtor pay the largest creditor until every balance is zero, and where some of the group turn out to be square among themselves it settles them apart, which saves a payment for each such group.

How to use this tool

1. List who paid what, one per line, in pence.
2. Read each person's balance against the equal share.
3. Follow the settlement list — those are the only payments needed.
4. Note that nobody both pays and receives.

Understanding the controls

Who paid what

One per line as a name and an amount in whole pence — 4250 is £42.50, and somebody who paid nothing is entered with 0. Working in pence is what makes the split exact rather than nearly right. A line that cannot be read is named and nothing is settled, because leaving a person out changes everybody's share.

Worked examples

Alice £60, Bob £30, Cara £0

£90 split three ways is £30 each: Alice is owed £30, Bob's balance is already zero, and Cara owes £30. One payment settles it — Cara pays Alice £30 — rather than everyone paying everyone.

Common use cases

• Settling up after a group holiday or a shared weekend
• Working out who owes whom after a round of shared expenses
• Reducing a tangle of debts to a handful of payments
• Checking a settlement adds up before anyone transfers money
• Splitting a bill where several people paid different amounts

How this generator works

Each person's balance is what they paid less an equal share. The share has to be whole pence, so the remainder is distributed one penny at a time — which keeps the balances summing to exactly zero rather than a penny out. Settlement then matches the largest debtor to the largest creditor repeatedly, which clears at least one person completely with each payment and so needs at most one fewer payment than there are people. That is few and not always the fewest: when some of the group are square among themselves (their own balances add up to nothing), they can settle apart and save a payment. So every way of grouping the people is tried, and where one needs fewer payments than largest-to-largest did, each group is settled within itself. Before display the balances are confirmed to sum to zero, the transfers are replayed and every balance must reach exactly zero, and nobody may both pay and receive.

Randomness and fairness

Nothing here is random. A set of payments has exactly one balance sheet, and this settlement construction is deterministic.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

• Everyone is assumed to owe an equal share, so a trip where some people had a room to themselves needs the shares worked out first.
• Amounts are in pence, so anything in another currency has to be converted before entering.
• The payments are the fewest that can settle the balances, found by trying every way of grouping the people — which is quick at the twelve people this takes and would not be for a hundred. There is often more than one settlement that short, and which of them is shown is this method's choice.
• This is arithmetic for splitting shared costs, not financial advice, and it makes no judgement about who should have paid what.

Privacy and your data

Names and amounts stay in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, stored or included in analytics — only the number of people.