How to Move a Group From Splitwise or Settle Up Without Retyping Anything

Your group's history is usually the reason you're still in the old app. Three years of rent, groceries and holiday costs live there, and nobody wants to retype them just to change where the next bill goes.

You don't have to. SpendSmart AI reads the spreadsheet export from Splitwise or Settle Up and builds the group for you, with every expense, who paid and who owed what.

Get the file out first

Do this in the app you're leaving, one group at a time.

Splitwise: open the group, go to Settings, then choose Export as spreadsheet. Do it with Splitwise set to English, because SpendSmart AI reads the column names.

Settle Up: open the group, then the menu, then Export, then choose CSV. Android exports CSV directly. On iPhone, export the text and save it as a file ending in .csv.

Bring it in

1. In SpendSmart AI, open the Groups tab and tap Import a group. It says "From Splitwise or Settle Up" underneath.
2. Pick the file. The app works out which service it came from.
3. Check the summary card. It shows the currency and how many people it found, and lists any rows it couldn't bring across.
4. Name the group, tap your own name under Which one is you?, and tap Import this group.

What comes across

• Members, as named placeholders. They aren't accounts yet. Invite them later with a link and each person claims their own place.
• Expenses, with who paid and each person's share.
• Payments, recorded as settlements and not as spending, so the balances stay right.
• The currency, taken from the file.

Importing always makes a new group. It doesn't merge into one you already have, and importing the same file twice is blocked, so you can't double your history by accident.

What doesn't

Better to know now than to find out in the middle of an argument about who owes what.

• A file with more than one currency is refused as a whole.
• Splitwise categories aren't mapped across, and Settle Up expenses arrive uncategorised.
• Rows where more than one person paid can't be imported. The app skips them and lists the line numbers, so you can add those few by hand.
• Any other row it can't read cleanly is skipped the same way. It never guesses a number.

What it costs

The import is free, but it creates a group, and the free plan includes three groups that you start. Groups you're invited to don't count against that.

Groups need an account, because the data lives online so everybody sees the same balances. If you've been using the app without signing in, creating an account keeps your local data.

After the import

Send each person their invite link. They can see their own balance and tap Pay without installing anything, as described in splitting expenses when half the group won't install an app. Joining the group itself takes a free account.

Frequently asked

Can I import into a group I already have? No. An import always creates a new group.

What happens if the import stops partway? The app tells you it was partly imported and offers to retry into the same group, so you don't end up with two.

Will my friends need to do anything? Only when you invite them. Until then they appear as names on the bills, and the balances are already right.

Does the app move money for us? No. The Pay buttons open Venmo, Cash App or PayPal, or UPI on Android, and the payment happens there.

If you'd rather keep your group's history without bank logins or ads, SpendSmart AI is free to start.