Guides
How expense splits work
Equal shares, custom amounts, income, and transfers — and how TmCount turns those entries into who owes whom.
01
What an expense records
An expense is a dated record of money that moved, who paid it, and how the cost is shared among group members. You add a description, an amount, a currency that matches the group, and optional category and notes. You can mark the entry as an expense, as income, or as a transfer, depending on what actually happened.
The payer is the member who laid out the money. Shares say how much of that amount each member is responsible for. TmCount uses those two facts to update balances. It does not move money between bank accounts. You still pay each other with your usual methods once you agree the numbers look right.
02
Equal splits
Equal split is the default for many shared bills: a grocery run, a taxi, a night in a rented apartment. TmCount divides the amount across the members you include. If four people share a €80 dinner equally, each share is €20. If the payer already covered the bill, the other three each owe the payer €20, all else equal.
You do not have to include every group member on every expense. Leave someone out when they did not take part. That keeps a weekend side trip from landing on a housemate who stayed home.
03
Custom splits
Custom shares are for uneven costs: one person took a larger room, someone covered only drinks, or a couple wants to be counted as one share. You set each member’s amount so the shares add up to the total. TmCount keeps the arithmetic visible so you can catch a leftover cent before you save.
Use custom splits when “fair” is not the same as “equal.” The app will not invent a fairness rule beyond the numbers you enter. If you need a percentage split, convert it to amounts when you log the expense so the record stays explicit.
04
Income and transfers
Income is money coming into the group, such as a refund or a shared reimbursement. Transfers are money between members that you want on the books, for example someone paying another member back in cash. Logging those events keeps the balance view aligned with reality instead of leaving a stale debt after people have already settled outside the app.
If you save a mistake, you can edit or soft-delete the entry. History keeps a trail of changes so other members can see what happened. That matters more in a shared group than in a personal ledger, but the same tools are there in both.