You do not need someone to install HiBill before you can split with them. Add them as a placeholder and carry on.
What a placeholder is
A placeholder is a person in your account who has no HiBill account of their own. All it needs is a name.
You can do everything with a placeholder that you can do with a registered person:
Split expenses with them
Record transfers to and from them
Build up a balance and settle it
Add them to a Circle
The difference is that they cannot see any of it. The record is yours — your view of what happened between you.
When to use one
Most of the time, honestly. Use a placeholder when:
You are out with someone right now and you want to record the bill before you forget.
The person is unlikely to want an app — a family member you occasionally lend money to.
It is a one-off and setting up an invitation is more work than the split is worth.
Use an invitation instead when the other person will actively want to see and add things — a flatmate, a partner, someone on a long trip. See inviting someone to HiBill.
Adding one
Go to People, add a person, and give them a name without an email invitation. That is the whole process.
Give them a name you will recognise later. "Marco (climbing)" beats a second "Marco" you cannot tell apart in six months.
If they sign up later
This is the part that makes placeholders safe to use freely.
When someone you have been tracking as a placeholder joins HiBill, you can merge the placeholder into their real account. The shared history comes with it — every expense, every transfer, and the balance.
The merge is a request that the other person confirms, not something you can do to their account unilaterally. Once they accept:
Your placeholder history becomes shared history that both of you can see.
The balance carries over exactly.
The duplicate person disappears from your list.
Because history survives the merge, there is no penalty for starting with a placeholder. You are not choosing a lesser option that you will regret. See merge requests for the full flow.
Limits worth knowing
They cannot confirm anything. A placeholder balance reflects your records only. If accuracy between two people matters — a big shared trip — an invitation is better, because both of you see the same ledger.
They receive no notifications. Nothing is sent to them. If you want them to actually pay you, tell them yourself.
Duplicates are easy to create. Adding the same person twice by accident is common. Merge handles it if one of them becomes real, but it is easier to check the list first.
Sharing a single transaction
If you just want one person to see one bill without any of this, use a public share link on the transaction. It works for people with no account at all. See sharing a transaction.