How to Split a Bill with PayID

Six of you go out for brunch in Sydney. The bill comes to A$318.40, one person puts their card down because the cafe won't split six ways on a Sunday, and everyone else pulls out their phone. Nobody is reading out a BSB. Someone says “PayID, same as my mobile” and that's the end of the logistics.

That is the good half of paying people back in Australia. A PayID is just your mobile number or email registered against your bank account, the payment runs over the New Payments Platform, and the money is there in under a minute at any hour. No app to install, no balance to top up, no username that belongs to a company in the middle.

The bad half is everything before the payment. PayID has no opinion on the fact that two people shared the A$26 fried chicken, one person had three coffees, and someone left early. Working that out, and then remembering who has actually transferred, still lands on whoever paid.

Type a BSB and account number into your banking app and it will cheerfully send your money wherever those digits point, whether or not they belong to the person you meant. Type a PayID and the app shows you the account name registered to it before you confirm.

For bill splitting that is a small, real safety net. You see “JESSICA N.” on screen, you recognize your friend, you pay. If a stranger's name comes up, you have caught a wrong number or a scam before the money moved rather than after.

• The recipient's PayID - the mobile number or email they registered, not just any address they use.
• The amount, to the cent.A$53.10, not “call it fifty”.
• A description.“Sunday brunch” is enough. Six untagged transfers of similar size are miserable to reconcile later.
• A quick look at the name your app shows you before you hit confirm.

1. One person pays the whole bill at the table.
2. Snap the receipt with tidytab. It reads the line items, and you set the bill to Australian dollars so every amount shows as A$. Prices here already include GST, so nothing gets added on top.
3. Share the link in the group chat with your PayID next to it.
4. Everyone taps what they ordered on their own phone. Shared plates split between the people who claim them, and a card or weekend surcharge goes in the tax line, where it spreads across the table in proportion.
5. Each person pays that exact amount to your PayID from their banking app.
6. They mark themselves paid in tidytab, so the whole group can see how much is still outstanding.

There is no public link that opens an Australian banking app with a PayID and an amount already filled in, and tidytab won't pretend there is. What it does is handle the two things PayID deliberately leaves alone: what each person owes, and who has paid.

Your friends open the bill link in a browser. No download, no sign-up, no account. They tap their items, see their share in AUD, pay it to your PayID, then tap the button saying they have paid. You get one page that fills in as the money arrives instead of scrolling back through bank notifications.

If you also want a one-tap option, add your PayID to the group chat and your PayPal to the bill itself. PayPal links open with the amount already in them and work on AUD bills, which suits the people who would rather not type anything. Creating and sharing a bill is free; you sign in with your email so you can manage it later.

• Register your PayID before you host, not after. Doing it while six people wait with their phones out is the wrong time to discover your number is linked to an old account.
• Send the exact number.Six people rounding A$53.10 down to A$50 is A$18.60 out of the host's pocket. The math is already done for you, so rounding saves nobody anything.
• Surcharges are fairer split in proportion. A 10% Sunday surcharge divided by heads overcharges whoever had the toast. Divided against what each person ordered, it lands where it should.
• Check the name, every time. The account name your app shows you is a free fraud check. It only helps if you read it.
• Friends banking overseas? For a share coming from outside Australia, Wise or Revolut will normally beat an international transfer on both the rate and the wait.