Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Shared bills explained - part 1

Today I'll be explaining one of our features - shared bills.

We share bills all the time - dining out with friends, splitting utility bills with housemates, or just sharing group expenses while on vacation. Billsup wants to help you with that, so that you can focus on what you love without worrying too much about debts and bills.

Shared bills are usually bills shared between more than 3 people. For bills involving just 2 people, a debt may be more suitable. We'll go over debt on a different post.

Simple example - road trip gas

This is the example taken from the tour, if you haven't taken it - do try it out!

So let's say Tom is on a road trip with John and Mary, and they decide to split the gas evenly throughout the trip. Normally, Tom would have to save all the receipts and figure out the settle-up details later. This can cause headaches with lost receipts, and also the math can be tricky - what if Tom paid for gas at the first leg, and John paid for the later legs?

Instead, Tom can easily enter each bill right away into Billsup and keep a trailing digital record of their expenses, and settle up with his friends later, so he can focus on having fun on his trip rather than about receipts and bills.

Here is what Tom needs to enter:
  • Participants (Tom, John, and Mary) - who is involved in this bill, including everyone sharing the expenses and the person(s) who paid
  • Bill details - here Tom can simply enter the total bill amount, which is $65.00 for this gas fillup
  • Who paid? - this is the person who paid for the bill. In this example, Tom paid for the bill, which will later be split between him, John, and Mary


The shared bill option can be used for meals, rent, utilities, flight tickets, hotels, or any other shared bills.

We'll be covering a more complex example next time - itemizing a shared bill! stay tuned!
Billsup team

2 comments:

  1. it would be nice, if there was edit bill feature accessible by all the participants of the bill and not just the bill reporter.

    ReplyDelete

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