Does Chikoo hold or move my money?

No. Chikoo is a record-keeping tool — it tracks who paid what and works out who owes whom. It is not a payment service, and it never holds or transfers funds. Marking something settled records that a payment happened; it doesn't make one happen.

Do my friends need the app to be added?

No. Add someone by phone number, or straight from your contacts, whether or not they're on Chikoo yet. You can split with them immediately — and when they do sign up with that number, the whole history is already waiting for them.

Can a group use more than one currency?

Yes. A group can hold expenses in several currencies at once, and balances stay exact in the currency they were entered in. Totals are converted to your preferred currency for display, and anything converted is labelled as approximate.

How does receipt scanning work?

Photograph a receipt and an AI model reads it, suggesting an amount, merchant and date. You check the figures before anything is saved — extraction is a head start, not a leap of faith. The image sent for scanning isn't stored unless you keep it with the expense.

What happens when someone leaves a group?

They can leave once their balance is settled, so nobody walks away mid-ledger. Expenses that included them are frozen afterwards, which keeps everyone else's history intact.

Can I delete my account?

Yes — from your profile, or at chikoo.2byte.in/delete-account. Expenses you shared with other people stay with them, because they're shared records those people rely on to know their own balances.

What's the fairest way to split a group trip?

For most trips: split shared costs (hotel, food, transport) equally and keep personal costs (drinks, shopping, solo activities) personal. Agree on the boundary before the trip starts.

How do we settle up at the end of the trip?

Net out all expenses into a single balance per person, then make the fewest transfers that bring every balance to zero. Tools like Chikoo's trip expense splitter compute this automatically.

Do we need an app for a small group?

Two people can manage with a notes app. From three or four people, the number of who-paid-what combinations grows fast enough that a dedicated tracker pays for itself in avoided arguments.

How to split expenses on a group trip

A group trip is a dozen expenses, several payers and one shared bill — and the split is where friendships quietly go to die. The good news: almost every trip-money argument is about process, not money. Agree on a method before you fly, track who paid what as you go, and settle up with a few clean transfers instead of a week of awkward UPI requests.

Agree on the method before you book

The single most useful thing you can do is settle *how* you'll split before anyone pays for anything. There are three methods that cover nearly every trip, and the right one depends on the trip, not on the group.

Split equally. Everyone shares the same total. Best for trips where everyone does roughly the same things — a beach week, a trek, a city break where the group moves together.
Split by usage. You pay for what you use. Best when people genuinely do different things — one person's spa day, another's solo excursion, a room only two of you share.
Split by category. Shared things (hotel, food, transport) go equal; personal things (souvenirs, drinks, shopping) stay personal. This is the one most groups actually want, and the one that prevents the most resentment.

Track as you go, not from memory

Reconstructing a week of expenses from memory is how ₹4,000 of dinner becomes “I'm pretty sure I paid for most of it.” The fix is boring and it works: log every expense the moment it happens, with who paid and who's in on it. Ten seconds per expense, and the end-of-trip math is already done for you.

If you're doing it by hand, a notes app is fine for a two-person trip. For a group of four or more, use a tool built for it — Chikoo's trip expense splitter is free, and you can add the whole group before the trip even starts.

The tricky parts, handled

Situation	Fair approach
One person booked flights for everyone	Log it as one big expense with that person as payer, split across everyone. It nets out like any other expense.
Two people share a room, two don't	Split the room by usage — the two who share it cover it between them, not four ways.
Expenses in two currencies	Keep each expense in the currency it was paid in. Convert only for the final display, and say so — rounding at the end, not per expense.
Someone always pays and never asks for it back	That's not generosity, that's an unpaid loan. Track it anyway; the balance is the record.

Settle up with the fewest transfers

The instinct at the end of a trip is for everyone to pay back whoever paid for them. That turns a four-person trip into a dozen transfers. The better way is to net out the whole web: if A paid ₹20,000, B paid ₹5,000 and C paid ₹5,000 on a ₹30,000 trip, the fair share is ₹7,500 each — so A gets ₹2,500 from B and ₹2,500 from C, and that's the entire settlement. Two transfers, not eight.

A dedicated tool does this netting automatically. Chikoo's trip expense splitter takes every expense and every payer and works out the minimum set of transfers that gets everyone to zero — and the expense splitter does the same for the everyday stuff, from flat rent to the dinner you keep splitting with the same two friends.

Try it free

Let the math run itself.