How to Split Bills and Track Expenses in a Telegram Group
Splitting a shared bill in a group chat usually means someone doing mental math out loud, or a spreadsheet nobody remembers to update. SplitTabsBot keeps a running expense ledger inside the Telegram group itself: log each expense as it happens, and the bot works out who owes whom — with the fewest possible payments, not everyone paying everyone.
It only tracks numbers, not real money — there's no payment processing inside the bot, just a shared ledger and a settlement calculation.
That distinction matters for a trip, a shared apartment, or a recurring group buy: SplitTabsBot tells the group exactly who should pay whom and how much, but the actual payment still happens however your group already pays each other — cash, a bank transfer, whatever you use.
Steps
- Add SplitTabsBot to your group. The ledger is scoped per group — each group gets its own tab.
- Log expenses as they happen with /add. Example: /add 42.50 dinner @alice @bob — amount, description, and who it's split between. The payer is always included in the split automatically.
- Check balances anytime with /balance. Shows each member's net balance — who's owed money and who owes it, based on everything logged so far.
- Get the minimal settlement with /settle. Takes no arguments. Shows the fewest transfers that would square the group up, instead of every person paying every other person.
- Undo a mistake or reset with /undo and /clear. /undo removes the most recent entry; /clear wipes the whole group's ledger and starts over.
Good to know
- Free: 20 expenses per group. Pro is a one-time 150 Stars (≈ $3) payment for the whole group, not per member, that removes the cap and adds CSV export via /export.
- SplitTabsBot never moves real money — /balance and /settle only calculate and display numbers.
- No banking or payment details are ever stored — just amounts, descriptions, and who was in each split.
- The ledger is scoped to the group it was entered in — clearing one group's data doesn't touch any other group's tab.
- You can be in as many different groups running SplitTabsBot as you want — a household group and a trip group, for example — and each keeps its own separate ledger and balances.
- CSV export on Pro gives the group a record outside Telegram, useful for reconciling a trip's costs afterward or keeping receipts for a shared budget.
FAQ
- Does SplitTabsBot actually send money between people?
- No — it only tracks who owes whom. /balance and /settle just display numbers; no real money moves through Telegram or the bot.
- What's the difference between /balance and /settle?
- /balance shows each person's running net balance. /settle goes further and shows the minimal settlement — the smallest set of transfers that clears every balance, rather than everyone paying everyone.
- Is the payer automatically included in a split?
- Yes — when you /add an expense with people to split it between, the payer is always counted as one of the people sharing the cost.
- How much is Pro and what does it add?
- A one-time 150 Stars payment unlocks the whole group, not just one member — it removes the 20-expense cap and adds /export for a CSV of the ledger.