Sometimes debts go in a circle. You owe Marco €20, Marco owes Aya €20, and Aya owes you €20.
Everyone could make a payment, or nobody could — the loop cancels out. Debt simplification collapses it.
You choose when to run it
This does not happen behind your back. When HiBill spots debts that can be collapsed, a Simplify action appears on your home screen.
Opening it shows you exactly what would change — which debts cancel and who is affected — before anything happens. Nothing is written until you press Simplify. If there is nothing to collapse, it tells you that instead.
A worked example
Three people after a weekend:
You owe Marco €20
Marco owes Aya €20
Aya owes you €20
Three payments to settle. But follow the money: it goes in a circle and returns to where it started. Nobody is actually out of pocket relative to anyone else.
Simplify cancels the loop. All three balances go to zero, no money moves, and everyone is square.
Loops are often partial. If you owed Marco €50 instead of €20, the €20 loop still cancels and you would be left owing Marco €30 — the leftover after the circle is removed.
Everything stays visible
The rule we hold to: no balance changes without a reason you can see.
Each cancellation is written as a real transaction labelled Simplification. Open one and you can see what it did. Balances never quietly drift.
One currency at a time
Simplification works within a single currency, because balances are tracked per currency and we never convert between them. A loop in euros and a loop in pounds are separate problems, collapsed separately.
You can't create one by hand
Simplification is the third transaction kind, and the only one the system writes. You cannot create or edit one directly — they are derived from the debts that exist. You can only trigger the process and confirm the result.
The two kinds you create yourself are expenses and transfers.
What it doesn't do
It doesn't move money. It records that a circular debt cancels. Nobody pays anything.
It doesn't change who is out of pocket. Everyone's real position is identical before and after — there are just fewer payments needed.
It doesn't touch people outside the loop. Only the balances in the circle are affected.
Seeing it in your timeline
Simplification entries appear alongside expenses and transfers when you open a person. If a balance is not what you expected, one of these is worth looking for — see understanding balances and why a balance looks wrong.