When people had genuinely different things, an equal split is unfair and guessing at custom amounts is tedious. Splitting by items assigns each line of the receipt to whoever had it.
The fast way in
Start by scanning the receipt. The line items are extracted for you, so you go straight to assigning them instead of typing a dozen products.
You can also add items by hand if you have no photo, or if the receipt did not itemize.
Assigning items
Each item has a quantity, and people claim against it. Two coffees on one line means two claims available — one each for two people.
Claims cannot exceed what is on the line. If an item has a quantity of two, three people cannot each claim a whole one; HiBill will tell you the item is over-assigned.
For the split to save, every item must be fully claimed and the items must add up to the bill total. Nothing is left floating.
Sharing one item between people
A bottle of wine between three, a shared starter — you do not need whole units. An item can be split into exact fractions, so "split by 3" gives each person a third of that line.
This is the main advantage over typing amounts: you describe who had what, and the arithmetic follows. No mental division at the table.
Tax, tip and service
These are not line items you assign, and this is the part worth knowing.
A bill carries tax, tip, service fee and discount as separate shared costs, split across everyone by one of two methods:
Proportionally — people who ate more pay more of the service. Usually the fairer choice.
Equally — everyone pays the same share regardless of what they ordered.
So you do not need to invent a "service charge" row and hand it to everybody. Put the amount in the right field and choose how it spreads.
Watch for a service charge the scan read as a product — that is the most common thing to correct after a scan, and it belongs in the service field instead.
When itemizing is the wrong tool
Big groups. Assigning forty lines across nine people is slower than letting everyone claim. Share the bill as an open split and let people answer for themselves — they can still claim by item that way, they just do it themselves.
Similar orders. If everyone had roughly the same, split equally. Itemizing a €40 bill to save someone €1.50 is not a good use of your evening.
Itemizing is at its best with two to four people and a receipt with a wide spread — one person had steak, one had soup.
Changing it afterwards
You can reopen the transaction and reassign items. Balances recalculate, and everyone involved sees the change. See editing and deleting transactions.