Splitwise

I used to love Splitwise—they had heaps of features that no other competitor offered and it was the perfect way to balance expenses in larger groups. We would happily pay for Pro to easily scan and itemize receipts into our groups and settle up. Categorization and simplifications were great features. But as time went on, instead of offering new and compelling features, they paywalled nearly everything useful that gave them the advantage. Venmo groups ate Splitwise’s lunch when it comes to the basic concept of entering an expense. There is absolutely no reason why a free account should be limited on the number of expenses it can enter per day, or there to be a delay between entering expenses. Bank connections are a joke, there’s no way to connect payment options like Zelle despite being one of the most requested features for almost 10 years now. There is no trust in the app to perform its basic function and charging users for absolutely everything drove each and every one of my friends away from the app. I wish they could turn it around and be honest with themselves about the value of their subscription, but until that happens I wouldn’t recommend using the app to anyone. At least the important and itemization features are dope so you get some stars for that.

The only things missing the ability to work in split screen on an iPad Air M2, and itemize a receipt from an existing photo. Other than that, this app has everything I need! It works really well. Alot of thought and polish has gone into it. Paying for premium is 100% worth it since my roommates and I need to split a lot of group purchases. With the paid version you can automatically (with little need for manual corrections) itemize a paper receipt. The only problem is you have to take a picture, you can’t use the auto itemize feature if the receipt forms from an existing photo. To do that I have to pull the photo up on another screen and use the Splitwise app to take a picture of the picture of the receipt. It seems like a glaring lack when the rest of the app is so polished. Splitwise makes it really easy to carve up any receipt, you can choose how to split it by item, by different percentages for each person, or just manually enter amounts everyone owes. The only other feature I want added is the ability to work in split screen on an iPad. Right now I have to pull Splitwise up on my phone and set it next to my iPad when I want to review my budget, until I can put Splitwise in split screen then I’ll need two devices to manage my finances. Switching back and forth over and over between apps just to review my finances doesn’t work well for me.

For example: my husband’s family is organizing a week long trip. Many of the family members are older and retired and not interested in joining Splitwise just to do math. BUT, I want to keep things simple and just enter into the app, everyone that’s a on the trip and will owe money to someone just to keep the accounting and to share my findings with the family. Since it’s not possible for me to get all 14 family members on board, it’s better if, I, at least get to use it as the family trip bookkeeper. Otherwise, I never use the app at all anymore. It would be hugely helpful if I could enter in every family member (without requiring them to sign up or use the app if they don’t want to), and then do the math of splitting the costs of the house vacation rental and food etc. And then, I can just tell everyone what they owe. This trip coming up, in particular, will be unique because there will be 2 newborns in the house, so simply dividing up the cost evening across total number of humans, doesn’t make sense. I really like the Splitwise has a way to split by shares and %. This would make things hugely simpler. I know you sacrifice potential users BUT isn’t it better that one person keeps using the app than no one using it? If I can’t just do the math for my family in the app, then i won’t use it at all, and that’s unfortunate because i really like the app and yet I can’t convince every retired adult to use it. Does that make sense? I hope it does. My husband and I used to use the app before we got married, but now we haven’t touched it in years. Adding this functionality that I suggested above would guarantee I’d use it again for trips with groups and family.