Two different things called "splitting": this article is about sharing expenses between people (you + a partner/roommate/co-owner). If you instead want to divide one purchase across Expense Accounts, Tags, or between business and personal, expand it in Review expenses and choose Split this expense — see "Categories, Tags, Business %, and split expenses — what each one does." The payer and settle-up stay attached to the original payment, so allocation lines do not duplicate shared spend.
ExpenseBot turns shared spending into a single shared Google Sheet with receipt proof attached to every row, plus a monthly settle-up report by category. It is built for couples, roommates, farm co-owners, business partners, and siblings splitting parent care — anywhere two or more people pool money without pooling bank accounts.
The setup: one person signs up, then uses the same Add emails flow in the Add Expenses section to add their partner's email as a verified forwarding address (open the forwarding-email section). The partner verifies the confirmation email and never needs their own ExpenseBot account. Both then forward receipt emails from their own inboxes to receipts@expensebot.ai. ExpenseBot reads the sender and tags the row with the payer automatically — no shared password, no credential exchange, no manual data entry. The receipt image is archived in Google Drive while the structured data — date, merchant, total, tax, category, payer — lands in the shared sheet.
Connecting Gmail is optional for this workflow. A connected Gmail account is scanned automatically; a forwarding email only recognizes receipts the partner actively forwards. Choose the forwarding flow when the partner should contribute selected receipts without giving ExpenseBot access to their inbox.
This goes beyond what apps like Splitwise or Venmo cover. Splitwise went paid in 2025 ($40/year, free tier capped at 3–5 expenses/day) and tracks IOUs but never sees the receipt. Venmo settles a payment but loses the category and the proof. ExpenseBot keeps both halves of the problem solved at once: who paid what, and a documented record of why. That matters for couples managing joint household spend without a joint bank account, for roommates who want monthly settle-up instead of group-chat accounting, for farm partnerships filing IRS Form 1065 (which requires documented expense allocation between partners), and for siblings splitting medical bills, home-care invoices, and prescription costs for an aging parent.
Categories map to Schedule C / T2125 for business partners, Schedule F for farms, and Schedule A for medical-expense splits — useful for Form 2120 multiple-support agreements between siblings. The monthly Partnership Spend Report shows total shared spend, per-person paid columns, top expenses, and a 12-month burn chart. The settle-up number is calculated automatically: if Partner A paid $2,140 and Partner B paid $1,610, the report shows Partner B owes Partner A $265 (half the difference). One Venmo, one Zelle, done.
Attribution isn't limited to forwarded email. Uploading receipt photos or PDFs shows a one-tap "Who paid?" choice for that batch, personal purchases can be marked "Not shared" so they stay out of the split (the report lists them in a visible "excluded" footer), and any receipt that lands Unassigned can be fixed right inside the report preview via "Review who paid" — pick the person from a dropdown and recalculate. With three or more payers, the report can also group people into households and settle up between households instead of individuals. Full walkthrough: "How does ExpenseBot know who paid — and how do I fix a receipt that shows Unassigned?"
For more, see the shared expense tracker landing page, the Splitwise alternative comparison, the real estate / farm property tracker, the rental property tracker, and the freelancer landing page for two-founder LLC splits.
Correct the split and rerun
Use Review expenses to correct the shared tag, Who paid value, or mark a purchase Personal/Not shared. Return to Partnership Spend Report and run Preview again. Preview is the recalculable working view: it includes Unassigned receipts for review, while Not shared purchases remain visible as excluded and do not enter the settle-up. After the numbers and payer assignments are right, click Generate to create a report snapshot. Later sheet edits do not change that generated snapshot; run Preview and Generate again when you need an updated report.