IOU tracker
An IOU is money owed between two people with nothing to divide. There is no group, no split and no share — just a running total of what has gone each way.
Why this is not just a group of two
A group models a shared cost that gets divided. A loan is not that: when you lend someone £40, there is no expense to split — one person handed money to another, and the whole amount is owed back.
| Group | Friend ledger | |
|---|---|---|
| People | Any number | Exactly two |
| What you record | An expense, and how it splits | A directional amount: gave, or got |
| Splitting | Equal, exact or percentage | None — nothing is divided |
| Typical entry | 'Dinner £120, split four ways' | 'Lent £40 for a taxi' |
| Balance | Per person, against the whole group | One running total between the two of you |
Using a group for a simple loan means inventing an expense that never happened. The ledger records what actually occurred.
How the ledger works
Each entry is one of two directions, from your point of view:
- You gave — money left you. You lent it, or paid something on their behalf. It increases what they owe you.
- You got — money came to you. They repaid you, or paid for something of yours. It reduces what they owe you, and past zero it becomes what you owe them.
The balance is simply the total of one direction minus the other. Because both directions live in the same ledger, a running relationship where money goes back and forth nets out correctly without either person keeping score separately.
Worked example: six months with one friend
You and a friend cover for each other regularly. Every entry goes in the same ledger, and the balance updates as you go.
| Date | Entry | Direction | Amount | Running balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Feb | Lent cash for a taxi | You gave | £40 | They owe you £40 |
| 3 Mar | They bought your concert ticket | You got | £65 | You owe them £25 |
| 19 Mar | Covered their lunch | You gave | £18 | You owe them £7 |
| 2 Apr | Paid their share of a gift | You gave | £30 | They owe you £23 |
| 28 May | They transferred you | You got | £23 | All settled |
Result: Five entries, no arithmetic, and no conversation about who owed what. The final transfer of £23 clears it because the ledger had already netted the four earlier movements.
Why small amounts are worth recording
The instinct is that a £20 loan is too small to write down. In practice the small ones are the problem: they are the amounts that are forgotten, and the ones nobody feels able to raise.
They are also not negligible to everyone. In the United States, 63% of adults said they could cover a hypothetical $400 emergency expense entirely with cash or its equivalent in 2025 — meaning 37% could not.[1] For a substantial share of people, a few hundred owed and unreturned is a genuine liquidity problem rather than an accounting curiosity.
A ledger changes the social dynamic more than the financial one. Nobody has to remember, nobody has to accuse, and asking becomes referring to a shared record instead of making a claim.
Using it well
Write the note
“£40” means nothing in August. “£40 — taxi home from Dave's” means everything. The note field takes five seconds and is the difference between a record and a puzzle.
Record it at the moment
The entry you mean to add later is the entry that never gets added. Add it while you are still standing there.
Attach a photo if it matters
For anything larger, a photo of the receipt or the transfer confirmation removes all doubt later.
Clear it when it clears
When the money comes back, record it. A ledger that only ever grows in one direction stops being believable, and people stop trusting it.
When to use a group instead
Switch to a group as soon as a third person is involved, or when the thing you are recording is genuinely a shared cost that needs dividing. Groups give you split methods, per-person balances and a settlement history. The ledger is for the simpler case, and it is better at it precisely because it does less.
IOU questions
Can Expenddy track IOUs between two people?
Expenddy has a one-to-one friend ledger for informal lending, which does not require creating a group. You record entries as 'You gave' or 'You got' against one person, and the ledger keeps a running balance showing whether that person owes you or you owe them. The ledger can be exported to CSV.
Can I record settlements when someone pays me back?
When a payment happens you record it in Expenddy as a settlement, and the balances clear by that amount. Expenddy keeps a dated settlement history of who paid whom. If a settlement was recorded by mistake it can be voided or edited, and the balance movement is reversed exactly — the original entry is annotated rather than deleted, so the history stays accurate.
Can I get my data out of Expenddy?
Expenddy exports to CSV. A group's full ledger can be exported from the group's settings, a friend ledger from that ledger's screen, and your personal records from the personal section. The file opens in any spreadsheet program.
Does Expenddy actually move the money?
Expenddy does not move, hold or transfer money, and it is not a bank or a payment service. You pay each other however you already do — cash, bank transfer, or any payment app — and then record in Expenddy that the payment happened. Expenddy is the record of who owes what, not the mechanism for paying it.
Sources
- Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households — dealing with unexpected expenses. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2025 survey year, page updated 13 May 2026 — 63% of adults said they would cover a hypothetical $400 emergency expense exclusively using cash or its equivalent
External statistics above are published by the organisations named and are not Expenddy data. Statements about how Expenddy works describe the app itself.
Start a ledger
Record a shared expense, see the balance update, and settle it when the money moves.
Free to use. Available for Android and in any web browser. An iOS app is in development and is not released yet.