The way my group does it is that someone usually takes care of all the bookkeeping, and at the end of the adventure, liquid assets (gold, gems, etc.) are tallied up but not divided yet. We then go through any and all gear and items that have been picked up during the adventure, and determine who gets what based on need and shoring up weaknesses, and after that any unclaimed items are typically sold off and that loot added to the running tally of treasure. Only then do we split up the gold evenly among the group. Whoever receives an item during the quest, the group makes note of it, does not take that item worth out of their share of gold, but keeps a list of who got what, so if someone goes to sell an item that came from group loot, the whole group receives the share of the gold. The idea being that the person who gets the most benefit out of a particular item should not be penalized for utilizing something that maybe only they can use, and especially since giving them the new item will most likely positively affect the group as a whole, offsetting anything else. Also, we only run home brew games, so our GM can easily throw in some specific loot if any characters feel like they are lacking or falling behind.
That's how we do it.
