How to Split a Bill on Google Pay [Guide]

Going out with friends for travel or leisure is fun, except for the part where you’ve to split the expenses among everyone.

Although apps like Splitwise simplify splitting bills to some extent, it’s a two-step process. First, you need to add expenses to a Splitwise group, and then everyone pays their share using a digital payments app, like Google Pay.

However, if you use Google Pay, there’s a more efficient way to split bills and settle your dues. It involves using Google Pay’s built-in bill-splitting feature, which eliminates the need for a bill-splitting app.

Let’s jump in and see how you can split bills using Google Pay.

Create a Google Pay Group

Google Pay’s bill-splitting feature is available as part of a group. Hence, you must first create a group and add the involved parties. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Google Pay app on your Android or iPhone.
2. Tap on the Pay contacts and hit the New group button at the top.
   
3. Tap on contact names with whom you want to split expenses to add them to the group and hit Next.
   
4. Give a suitable name to the group and tap Create.
   Google Pay will create a new group. Here, you can send messages and add expenses to split them. In addition, you can also add new people later or remove the existing ones.

Google Pay groups are present under the People section on the Google Pay home page.

Add Bill Expenses to a Google Pay and Split Them

After you’ve created a Google Pay group, tap on it from the home page under All People and follow these steps to add expenses and split them:

1. Hit the Split an expense button at the bottom of the page.
   
2. Enter the amount, i.e., the expense you want to split among all the group members, and hit Next.
   
3. On the following screen, select the people with whom you want to split the expense you just added. If you want to exclude someone, you can leave them unchecked. Or, if someone owes more than others, you can add their share individually.
4. Add a description of the expense to help everyone know about it.
   
5. Tap on Send request.

As you do this, Google Pay will send a request to all the members of the group, informing them about the same with the amount they need to pay to clear their dues. All the payment group members make will go to the bank account of the creator of the bill split.

Other group members can also share their bill expenses and raise requests for a split. As the number of bills increases, so does everyone’s share. To save you from having to keep up with this and simplify the debts, Google Pay smartly calculates the amount based on all the bills in the group and shares them with everyone—similar to Splitwise’s Simplify Debts feature.

Check the Payment Status for Your Request

If you’ve created a bill split and want to track who has paid their dues and who’s yet to do it, follow these steps to do it:

1. Open the Google Pay app.
2. Tap on the group name on the home screen.
3. Select the bill for which you want to check the settlements.

Google Pay will show you a breakdown of all the settlements on the following screen, including the dues.

If you want to send someone a reminder to settle their dues, tap on Send reminder, and Google Pay will send them a reminder immediately.

If more people have shared their expenses in the group, and you want to find out your share of the due, there’s a way to do that too. Go to the group and tap the Bill button (one with the receipt icon) at the top. Here, you can see a simplified breakdown of the amount you owe and to who. After which, you can tap the Split expense button and send money across easily.

Close Settlement Request in Google Pay

After you’ve settled dues with group members, you can close the settlement request. Keep in mind, though, that doing so will prevent anyone from sending you money.

1. Tap the ellipsis button in the top-right corner of the screen and select Close request.
   
2. Hit the Close request button to confirm.

Leave a Group in Google Pay

If you wish to leave a group—perhaps because everyone’s got their share of money or because you won’t need it later—you can do so using these steps:

1. Open Google Pay.
2. Go to the group you want to close.
3. Hit the ellipsis button in the top right and select Group settings.
   
4. Tap on Leave group. When asked to confirm, hit the Leave group button again.
   

Delete a Google Pay Group

Once all the dues in a Google Pay group are settled, you may want to delete it. Unfortunately, there’s no one-click way to do this, so you need to go a few extra steps. Plus, you can only do this if you’re the group admin.

1. In the Google Pay app, go to the group you want to delete.
2. Tap on the group name at the top to access its settings.
3. Here, tap the minus (–) button next to all the group members to remove them from the group.
4. Once you’ve removed everyone, tap the Leave group button.
5. Confirm again by hitting the Leave group in the confirmation prompt.

Splitting Bills and Clearing Dues Is Easier Than Ever

Splitting bills manually and sharing people’s share for their expenses can be quite a task, especially if there are multiple bills and more than one spender in the group.

Google Pay makes this process a lot more streamlined and painless. It puts all the features you’d need, from chat to reminders to the ability to split bills intelligently and send money in one place. This eliminates the friction between the lender and the borrower and saves everyone time and effort.