Group holidays
Track a group trip's expenses, and settle up at the end
A house rented by six, the first night's groceries, the petrol, Tuesday's restaurant, the museum tickets bought by whoever had their card to hand. Forty expenses in seven days, four people who paid, and a reckoning to do on the train home.
Why it almost always goes badly
Nobody counts while they are there. That is normal, that is rather the point: you are on holiday. Notes pile up in a group chat between photos, and the thread is lost by day three.
Coming home is the wrong moment to count. Everyone has scattered, everyone remembers differently, and the person who paid the most is the one who has to chase the others. That is the trip that leaves a bad taste over thirty euros.
And expenses do not concern everyone. Two people were not at Tuesday's restaurant. Three took the car, the others the train. The couple share a room, the others do not. Dividing the total by six is simple, and wrong.
How it works in Kotisso
Kotisso replaces the group chat and the spreadsheet on the way home with a reckoning that keeps itself during the trip. It never moves money and asks for no bank account.
-
1
Open the group before you leave
A group called "Corsica in August", a link sent to the chat where you are already organising. Everyone signs up in thirty seconds. The app sits on a phone's home screen and still opens without a network to show the last known balances, which matters when you travel.
-
2
Record on the spot, not on the way home
Ten seconds, standing up, one hand full: an amount, who paid, who it concerns. That is all the method asks, and all it will ever ask. What gets recorded on the spot never has to be reconstructed.
-
3
Pay in the local currency, count in yours
An expense paid in baht or in krona is entered exactly as it was paid, with that day's rate. The rate is frozen at entry: a holiday expense does not change value three months later, and nobody's balance shifts every morning.
-
4
Settle in two transfers
At the end, Kotisso proposes the shortest path back to zero: at worst one transfer fewer than there are travellers, often two or three in total. The statement exports as a spreadsheet or a PDF, which closes the conversation before it starts.
What the free version covers
A trip needs no paid option at all. The whole reckoning is free:
- unlimited expenses, travellers and settlements;
- all four split modes, expense by expense, with or without everyone;
- expenses paid in another currency, converted at the rate you enter;
- photos of receipts, and exporting the statement as a spreadsheet or a PDF;
- live balances for everyone, and the shortest reimbursement plan.
Premium only adds comfort: more than two groups open at once, history beyond twelve months, statistics and a profile photo. The numbers themselves are the same for everyone. See the pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Does everyone have to sign up?
It is better if they do, because then everyone sees their own balance live and can record their own expenses. But nothing stops one person entering everything for the group and sharing the exported statement at the end.
What about expenses that only concern some of us?
That is the normal case, and it takes two taps: untick whoever was not involved. Tuesday's restaurant only weighs on the four who were there, and the balances account for it immediately.
Does it work without a network?
For reading, yes: pages you have already seen reopen offline, with a banner warning that the figures may be stale. Entering a new expense does need a connection, however brief.
The reckoning keeps itself
Open the group before you leave. It is the only moment when it costs nothing, and the one that spares you the whole conversation on the way home.
Create my trip group