New Year’s Eve at a cabin with several families: from the deposit to the settlement

By Milan Martiniak · 1 November 2026 · 4 min read

A New Year’s cabin is usually booked in October, the deposit is paid in November and the money is sorted out in January, when nobody remembers who bought the champagne. This guide goes from the booking to the last transfer and shows with an example how to split the cabin when someone arrives later.

Before you go

The deposit. One family usually pays it for everyone. Note it down straight away with its due date, so nobody forgets it and it is clear who paid. In Spolu it goes into Deposits in the event’s plan. Spolu reminds you 7 days and 1 day before the due date, and when you mark the deposit as paid it is added to the expenses.

Who arrives when. At New Year not everyone stays the whole time. Note each family’s arrival and departure before the trip, and the cabin is then split by nights. In Spolu each family sets this for itself under “Who’s going”.

Who brings what. Raclette, fireworks, sledges, an extension lead. Share it out beforehand, or there will be three bottles of fizz at the cabin and no opener. In Spolu you hand out tasks in the plan and every family sees what it is in charge of.

At the cabin

Log costs as they happen. At the end of the stay nobody will remember who brought the firewood on Saturday. Cabins often have poor signal, but Spolu keeps working offline and syncs once the phone is back online.

New Year costs split in different ways:

• The cabin: per person and by nights.
• Shopping for the dinner: children at half.
• Champagne and wine: adults only.
• Fireworks: per family. Everyone enjoys them, whatever their age.

An example with numbers

The cabin from 30 December to 2 January, so three nights. The Smiths (2 adults, 2 children) and the Browns (2 + 1) are there the whole time. The Taylors (2 adults) arrive on 31 December, so they stay two nights.

The cabin, €900, paid by the Smiths. It is split by person-nights, the number of people times the number of nights:

25 person-nights in total, one costs €900 / 25 = €36.

Shopping for the New Year dinner, €240, paid by the Browns. Children at half: the Smiths have 3 shares, the Browns 2.5, the Taylors 2. One share is €240 / 7.5 = €32, so €96, €80 and €64.

Fireworks €120 and wine €90, paid by the Taylors. Fireworks per family at €40, wine between six adults at €15, so €30 per family.

The settlement

The Browns send the Smiths €234 and the Taylors €68. Two transfers and you are done.

In Spolu you send the settlement to the group chat as one link, and anyone can open it without signing in. In the app each transfer comes with a payment QR code for euro payments or the bank details to copy. Whoever pays marks it as paid and the others see it straight away.

When the deposit was paid earlier

If the Smiths paid a €300 deposit in November and the remaining €600 on arrival, there are two expenses for the cabin. The deposit you marked as paid in the plan is already in the expenses, so you only add the €600 balance. Check that both are split the same way, per person and by nights. The result is the same as with a single €900 payment, and the deposit does not need to be settled separately in November.