Every friend group has one. The one who books the table, pays for the cab, puts the Airbnb on their card (because someone has to) and the host just wants an answer tonight. Three weeks later that same person is typing "Hey, sorry to bother you again" into a WhatsApp chat for the fourth time, wondering if ₹740 is worth making things awkward over.
If that person is you then this article is for you.
Splitting the bill is straightforward. Getting paid back is the tricky bit. In India where pretty much everyone has a UPI app on their phone it's rather odd that getting your share back still involves so much pestering.
Why bill splitting still feels broken
The majority of bill splitting apps are just ledgers. They'll remember that Rahul owes you ₹1,200, they won't help you actually get it though. You still have to go and remind him. He still has to open up the app. Before any of that can happen though, everyone in the group has to download the app, sign up, verify their email and remember a password.
The reminders do feel very personal and eventually you just forgive the last few hundred rupees and stop booking the table.
A different approach: one person sets it up, everyone else just pays
Bharpai (an Android app for splitting your bills via UPI) starts with a very simple premise. Only the person who is actually collecting the money needs the app. Everyone else just gets a link.
Here is how a split works:
- Enter the total. Type in the amount or take a photo of the receipt. The receipt is read on your phone so the photo never leaves your device. You then get a full list of line items, taxes and service charges which is fully editable.
- Pick who was there. Choose names from your contacts or type them in. Only the names you select will be used.
- Decide how to split it. Equal, by exact amounts, by percentage, by shares or item by item (if for instance one person only had a coffee while the rest of the table had ordered biryani).
- Send the link. One message to the group chat or a personal message to each individual. It's your own phone sending it out via WhatsApp or whatever chat app you're using so no-one gets a strange text from some unknown service.
Your friends just open the link in their browser. Nothing to install. Nothing to sign up for. Nothing to enter a password.
What your friends see
The link takes you to a landing page created specifically for one job: getting the right amount to the right person.
Each friend taps their name and sees precisely what they owe. Below that is a UPI QR code for your account with their amount on it. They can scan it using any UPI app (Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm or their bank's app), or save it to their gallery with a tap and then scan it from there. They can also copy your UPI ID if they'd rather type it in.
When they've paid they tap "I've paid". That then appears against their name in your app and your phone gets an alert.
The page also tells them what to check prior to the payment: that their UPI app actually shows your real name (the name from the bank which can't be spoofed). It reinforces that no-one will ever ask for an OTP, a PIN or their bank details. Niggly little things, but they do go a long way to making the link feel safe to use.
Your money goes straight to your bank
This is the crucial bit. Bharpai never touches the money at all. The payment goes from your friend's UPI app directly into your bank account just as it would if you'd given them your UPI ID in the chat. There's no wallet to withdraw from, no payout delay and no fee on the payment.
The app never asks for your bank account number, PIN or OTP. The only payment detail it stores is your UPI ID so your friends know where to pay.
Keeping track without keeping a grudge
Once the link is out the split is just a simple checklist. Each person shows up as unpaid, says paid, settled, partly paid or covered by someone else. A friend who's sent ₹500 of their ₹800 can be marked as partly paid and the remainder remains visible.
Your bank statement is still the final word. If someone taps "I've paid" you can go and check that against your statement and then mark it as settled. If a friend pays you in cash then you can mark that as settled as well.
For those of you who need a nudge there's a reminder button which will write a fairly polite message for you to send on WhatsApp. One person you're owed money by across a number of splits will get one combined reminder rather than five individual ones.
For trips and flatmates: the running tab
A dinner is one bill. A trip is fifteen bills, paid by four different people over three days. For that Bharpai has the khata (the shared running tab).
Everyone opens the same link and adds what they've paid as they go (the cab from the airport, the beach shack dinner, the scooter hire etc). You can also record the case where you pay someone back part way through and the tab will adjust accordingly. At the end of it all the khata produces a short list of payments which settles everyone. Rather than everyone paying everyone back you end up with a trip of four people being settled in no more than three payments.
A few more things it does
Bharpai has picked up a lot of small, useful habits along the way.
- Spin the bottle. Can't decide who picks up the bill? Spin for it, the old way.
- Bills in 150+ currencies. Back from Bangkok with a bill in baht? Type it in as it is. The rate is locked on the split and everyone still pays you in rupees.
- A QR for every share. At the table, just raise your phone. One code covers everyone if the shares match, or the app steps through a code per person if they don't.
- A ledger across every split. See who owes you what across all your splits, and send each person one combined nudge.
- Payment alerts. Your phone pings the moment someone says they've paid, so you're not refreshing anything.
- English and हिंदी. The app, every settle page your friends open and every reminder you send work in both.
What is free and what is not
Creating splits, sending settle links, collecting via QR codes and scanning of receipts are all free. There is no limit on the number of splits and you can have up to 100 people in each.
Bharpai Pro is for people who collect money regularly:
- recurring splits for rent or a monthly OTT subscription
- rosters for groups you split with often
- templates to repeat a split in two taps
- automatic reminders, never at night
- CSV export of your whole ledger
- khatas for trips and shared flats (friends join them free)
Pro is ₹19/month or ₹149/year.
Privacy, briefly
Your friends don't create an account. The settle page will remember which name you selected (via an anonymous identifier in a cookie) so that's the one that will be used. Your own account is of course tied to your email so your splits will come back if you change phones. You can delete the account and everything associated with it from within the app at any time.
The app is in English and Hindi and displays all amounts in Indian number format so that ₹1,25,000 appears as it should.
Stop being the collector
If you're the one who books all the dinners, the one who pays the electricity or the one who's got the turf money collected every Sunday then you still have to send the link. Once you've done that your friends know precisely what they owe and can pay in a matter of seconds with nothing to install.
You can find Bharpai at bharpai.app.
Also on Medium.