Toshl Finance Blog

How to Split Your Expenses or Incomes (iOS)

To track your expenses and incomes more precisely, it is possible to split the total of the bills into smaller parts in the Toshl Finance apps. You can keep an eye on your costs and sort them better by adding different categories to the split parts of the bills. Other than this basic purpose, it can also help you better track your shared purchases, loans, refunds or cashbacks.

Splitting amongst categories and tags

By using the splitting feature, you are able to manage a common receipt issued for different types of expenses with high accuracy. For instance, a grocery shopping expense for 50 € comes in. You want to split it into groceries (30 €), alcohol (5 €) and cosmetics (15 €). By tapping Split on the expense, you can assign new amounts of split entries, use different categories or tags, and your expense tracking will be more precise than it has ever been.

1. Whenever you want to split an expense or income. Just tap it to open the entry details.

2. Then tap “Split”.

3. Enter the appropriate amounts, categories, and tags for split entries.

4. Tap the Save (tick) icon and you’re all done.

The split expenses will show up on the list with a special icon and will always be grouped together.

You can also find the other part of the split on the details of a split entry. In other ways, they behave just like any other expense, except that they can’t be split again.

Quick tips

  • The original expense will be split into 2 parts by default, but you can add up to 20 splits by tapping the + icon. New split entries will automatically get the remaining amount which hasn’t been covered by earlier splits yet. You can, of course, change it later to whatever you like.
  • The “remaining from total” amount always shows how much of the total amount of the original entry you still have to distribute among split entries so the amounts will match with your original spending. You can set any amount you want, but Toshl will warn you if you leave some funds undistributed or exceeded the original amount.
  • The location, description, reminders, and photos remain common for all parts of the split of the certain expense or income. You can edit them all at once when splitting. If you want them to differ among split entries, you can still edit them individually later, on the relevant split entry for an expense or income.

When using with connected accounts (Toshl Medici)

If you use Toshl Medici and have set a bank connection, your bank or financial service transactions will be added automatically to your expenses. Some will require to be reviewed, for example, if they need to be confirmed as transfers. You can also split an entry when Reviewing.

For that:

1. Go to the “Bank connections” section in the main menu.

2. Tap “Review entries” below a connection.

3. Tap “Income”/”Expense”.

4. Turn ON the switch “Split into multiple entries”. The usual splitting interface will show up and you can assign different amounts, categories, and tags.

5. Tap the Save (tick) icon.

When using with manual accounts (Toshl Free, Toshl Pro)

To split manually added expenses, open an expense and tap “Split”. Just like with automatically imported entries, feel free to split your expense into smaller multiple entries and add a matching category and tag.

When using manually added expenses, there’s less of a need for splitting. You can just add the expenses in multiple entries, to begin with. It might come useful though, especially when you import entries from a file.

Primarily, the splitting feature enhances your precision in sorting your expenses in different categories and tags. But it can also come handy for managing shared expenses, loans, refunds or similar. We’ll take a look at those cases below.

Splitting and paying back purchases with friends

The splitting feature will make your life easier when you are struggling with tracking shared costs with your relatives, friends or colleagues. As we all know, people tend to forget the things which are not written down. So how to keep tracking your shared expenses? You can do it in a few taps in the Toshl Finance apps.

For instance, you are going for dinner with your friend. When it comes to paying the 100 € bill, you find out that you have no cash. You suggest paying by card for both, and your friend agrees to pay his (or her) part back. How do you note it down in Toshl

When this expense from your credit card comes in, you just need to split it into appropriate entries, both yours and your friend’s sharing, in the way described earlier.

You might add a special category and tag to your friend’s part of the bill (split entry).

After the splitting is done, you will see both split entries in Expenses marked with the split icon.

If your friend pays his (her) part back in cash immediately:

  1. Find the split entry for the lent amount and tap “Delete”.
  2. Enter the amount of the lending part as Income on the relevant account if they paid you back in cash.

Whether your friend prefers to pay his part of the dinner costs later, you may add a reminder to your lending split entry. For that:

  1. Open your lending split entry.
  2. Tap “Edit”.
  3. Tap Reminder icon and enter the custom date for the reminder (for instance, 1 day before you expect to get lending back at 11:00 AM).

Toshl will remind you about the due date at the time you set. It can’t notify your friend though, so that part is up to you ;)

As soon as you get the funds back:

  1. Open the Toshl Finance app.
  2. Go to Expenses.
  3. Find the split entry for the lent amount and tap “Delete”.
  4. Enter the amount of the lending part as Income on the relevant account if they paid you back in cash.

Note that at this last step you don’t have to do anything if you use Toshl Medici and have connected a bank account that the lending is paid to. Your friend’s transaction will be added to Incomes automatically.

So, it is all covered now. Savor the relief.

You can use this to track any kind of reimbursement in Toshl. For instance, business travel reimbursements could also be noted this way.

Splitting in foreign currencies

Let’s visualize that you are going on a business trip to some foreign country, for instance, Ukraine. You stay for a few nights at the luxury hotel in Kyiv booked by your company in advance. Later, you order a coffee and snacks at the hotel and you get the common receipt (3500 ₴) at the reception desk at the end of your stay.

Your company will reimburse the accommodation costs (3200 ₴), but you need to cover all other expenses (300 ₴) on your own. You can split this receipt into two parts in the Toshl app. You’re also able to track your reimbursement for the accommodation part, as it has been described in the previous case. However the bill is issued by the hotel in foreign currency, and you have no idea how to convert both parts of expense to your main currency (e.g. €). What should you do?

Just relax. It is not a big deal at all. When you split an expense in Toshl app, you may use any currency for each entry.

To do that:

  1. When entering split entries of your expense, just tap the currency icon in the split entry.
  2. Select the preferred currency from the drop-down menu.

The preview in your main currency will be displayed, so you’ll know if you’ve covered the original amount, no matter which currencies you used.

No need to panic when you receive a bill for shared expenses in a currency that you are not quite familiar with. Toshl monsters will help you juggle those multiple currency exchange rate calculations with such ease, it will be as if you can see inside the matrix.

Quick tips

  • Like everything in Toshl, splitting also works with different currencies. You can set individual currencies and amounts for the split entries.
  • Toshl will automatically recalculate the value in the entry in your main currency.
  • If the currency of the entry doesn’t match the account currency or the main currency, a preview of the value in your main or account currency will be shown.

Getting a refund

Let’s suppose that you purchase two items (T-shirt for 15 € and wallet for 25 €) at some online shop. You pay by card and receive the common receipt for 40 € for both items. When you get the parcel, you try the T-shirt at home and it happens to be oversized. You contact the shop, and they answer they could make a refund for a T-shirt to your bank account. Then you run into a dilemma how to track this expense in Toshl app: this common expense has been already noted on your account.

First of all, it might be a good idea to set a reminder for your refund for the date when you expect to get it back from the shop, as it is described in one of the cases above. In this way, you will be updated about the due date by Toshl monsters so you could send a polite email to the shop if no refund arrives.

You’ll get the refund as an income on your account. If you’re ok with this kind of tracking you’re all done, no need to do anything more. However, if you’re bothered by the full original expense still being present, for budgeting or other reasons, you can:

  1. Open Toshl Finance app.
  2. Go to Incomes.
  3. Find a refund income that has just arrived in your account.
  4. Delete the refund income.
  5. Split the original expense amount into two entries: the amount of refund and the amount of the other purchased item.
  6. Delete the refund split entry of the original expense.

This way, you are able to balance your expenses and incomes.

Cashback

In some countries, you may also have the option to withdraw additional cash from your card when paying at a supermarket or other location. You can ask the merchant to add an extra amount to the purchase price and receive the added amount in cash. The common expense will be noted on your bank account. The thing is you will receive cash in hand. How to note this?

Toshl will take care of the correct balance of your accounts. As soon as you get the cash, you can note that a part of this expense is really a transfer between your card and cash accounts. Just like an ATM withdrawal.

When the expense comes in:

  1. Open Toshl Finance app.
  2. Go to Expenses.
  3. Find the expense that has just arrived in your account.
  4. Split it into two parts: the amount of purchase and cashback amount
  5. Find the split entry for the cash amount and tap “Make transfer”.
    Select your cash account and tap “Save”.

Thus, the amount of cashback is noted as transfer to another account, so you have it all under control.

You‘ve got your money in the right place. That’s good news!

Quick tips

Occasionally, if you decide to un-match the transfer of split entry, you can revert the change easily:

  1. Just tap “Un-match transfer”. The pop-up window will be displayed explaining what happens on this action.
  2. Tap “Cancel” if you change your mind, or tap “Un-match transfer” if you want to complete the action.

Unsplitting

You might unsplit your expense or income whenever you feel like. To do so:

  1. Open any of the split entries of the original expense.
  2. Tap “Unsplit”.

The splitting changes will be reverted, and the original expense will appear in the Expenses list.

To sum up, with the splitting feature, you are able to manage your expenses more precisely. Moreover, it allows you to better track your shared purchases, loans, refunds, and cashbacks. It will take care of all the records, no matter which currency they’re in. By splitting, your finances become whole. Toshl, powered by irony.

Posted in iOS Tutorials, Tutorials