# Split a flight between two or more people

> The Who pays what panel divides one flight into a stake per person, and the booking mints one invoice per payer. Fill it in after the flight is back and before it is invoiced.

Source: https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/split-a-booking-between-payers
Section: Scheduling and dispatch. For: Owners, Admins, Dispatchers, Instructors, Students, Renters.

On a booking with more than one payer, the **Who pays what** panel on the reservation records
each person's stake. Fill it in after the aircraft is back and before the booking is invoiced,
because the booking mints one invoice per payer and the shares freeze the moment the first one
exists.

**Who can do this:** Owners, Admins, Dispatchers, Instructors, Students, Renters

## When the panel appears

Open the booking from `Calendar` (web console), press **Open the full booking** at
the foot of the panel, and look in the close-out section. The Who pays what panel is drawn
only when all three of these are true:

- the booking has **two or more payers** on it, for example two renters on a shared
  cross-country or four students in a ground class
- it has **not been invoiced** yet
- there is something on it that costs money to divide

A one-payer booking has no panel, because there is nothing to split. If you expected one and
it is not there, count the payers again: an instructor with a student aboard is not one of
them, and neither is a guest.

## Fill in each person's stake

Each row is one payer. Depending on the booking you can record:

| Field               | What it is                                                      |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hobbs out, Hobbs in | That person's own leg of the flight                             |
| Instruction (hrs)   | Ground or flight instruction time attributed to them            |
| Share %             | Their percentage of the cost                                    |
| Role                | Pilot in command, Safety pilot, Second in command, or Passenger |
| Not billed          | Takes them out of the split, with a reason                      |

Fill in what you know. Your school's cost-splitting rules decide which of these figures the
invoice actually uses, and the rest is kept as a record of what happened on the flight. The
rules themselves live under `Settings → Cost splitting` (web console), which is
admin-only, so a dispatcher filling this in cannot see them. If you are not sure which fields
matter at your school, ask an admin once and then it is the same every time.

A ground lesson shows a shorter panel: Instruction and Share % only, with no Hobbs fields and
no pilot role.

![Who pays what panel](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/who-pays-what-panel.png)

## Split evenly

**Split evenly** fills the whole panel in one press, which is what a shared ride usually
wants:

- The **legs run consecutively** from the recorded Hobbs out, so the first person flies from
  1014.2 to 1014.9 and the second from 1014.9 to 1015.6. That is both what happened and what
  adds up: the legs come to exactly what the aircraft flew, which is what the server checks.
- **Instruction** divides the same way, against the lesson's recorded time.
- **Shares** come to 100%.

Odd tenths go to the earlier payers rather than being rounded away, so 2.5 hours between two
pilots is 1.3 and 1.2 rather than 1.25 twice.

It fills the fields; it does not save them. Change anything that was not even, then press
**Save**. It appears once the booking has been ramped in, since before that there are no
hours to divide.

![Who pays what, after Split evenly](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/who-pays-split-evenly.png)

Press **Save** when the rows are right.

> **Tip:** The board refreshes itself in the background every twenty seconds, and it will not overwrite
> entries you are halfway through typing. You can take your time in this panel.

## The first person listed is the leading payer

The order people were added to the booking is not cosmetic. The first person on a side is the
leading payer: they are the one billed when your school's rule for a charge is "one person
pays", and they take the odd cent when a division does not come out even.

If the wrong person is first, fix it on the booking rather than in this panel. An edit replaces
the whole crew, so staff or the instructor on the booking can set the people again in the
order you want. A student or renter can only add or remove themselves.

## Why the instructor is not in the table

An instructor with a student aboard is being paid, not billed, so they are left out of the
payer table. The header of the panel says so and names them.

An instructor flying **alone** does appear, because at that point they are renting the
aircraft like anybody else.

## Mark somebody as not billed

Tick **Not billed** on their row and give a reason. Use this for the person whose seat was
comped, or the safety pilot who is not paying for the aeroplane. They stay on the flight
record and they still sign off the close-out. They simply do not get an invoice.

## The totals have to match

The panel adds your rows up live and says when they do not work:

- "Individual hours: 1.2 of 1.4 the aircraft flew, off by 0.2. These have to match, or we
  can't bill it." The legs you entered have to account for the whole time the aircraft was
  running.
- "Shares total 90%. That has to be 100%." Percentages have to close.

Fix the numbers until both warnings clear, then save.

## Save before the invoice is raised

The invoice is generated the moment the **last** pilot signs off the close-out with their PIN.
So the order of the day is: ramp in, fill in Who pays what, save, then everybody signs off.

> **Careful:** If the flight is signed off before the panel is saved, the invoices are already out and the
> shares are locked. The panel then says "This booking has already been invoiced, so the shares
> can't be changed. Void the invoices first if they're wrong." Voiding and reissuing is more
> work than it sounds, so on a split flight it is worth telling the other pilots to hold their
> PIN until the split is in.

## After it has been invoiced

A split booking produces **one invoice per payer**, not one invoice with everybody's share
inside it. Each person sees their own, labelled as one of N shares for the booking.

That is also why the board's Billing filter can look wrong. A booking counts as Unpaid while
**anybody's** share is outstanding, so a ground class where three of the four students have
paid still shows as unpaid until the fourth does. See
[Find a booking on the schedule](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/filter-and-search-the-schedule).

## Related

- [Split a booking's cost between several people](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/set-up-cost-splitting): The rules that decide how each charge divides.
- [Fill in Who pays what on a shared booking](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/who-pays-what-at-close-out): The same panel from the billing side.
- [Sign off a flight with your PIN](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/sign-off-with-your-pin): The step that turns the shares into invoices.
- [Which reservation type should I use?](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/scheduling/reservation-types): Which types can carry more than one payer.