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GroupMe: Split the Bill

blog.groupme.com

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Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#31

Post by cbhl »

jmathai wrote: post #23
mgkimsal wrote: post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

Square. I'm happy footing the bill if I can get payments from everyone else via credit card right at the spot. Cash also works but more than likely everyone will have a credit card. If they don't, then cash.

Not to mention Venmo, Dwolla, PayPal, Interac Email Money Transfer...

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#32

Post by xradionut »

lcusack wrote: post #4

I think this functionality (mobile first, crowd funding / group payments) could quickly become a more important feature than the group texting. Great work.

Really?

Is it too hard to ask for separate checks or figure out Basic Dining 101? Call me an old fart, but when I read about apps like this I want to do my Samuel L. Jackson imitation and say; "Arithmetic, m-----f-----, can you figure it?"

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#33

Post by NZ_Matt »

T-R wrote: post #14
mgkimsal wrote: post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

Bill split apps are really nice if you live in a shared housing/dorm type situation. At our hacker house, we're always going out for dinner together, or sending someone out to get food, or ordering groceries on Instacart - saves so much time not having to use cash, or keep track of who got what beforehand. Really wish this was an option while I was in college. We've been using Split&Pay ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/…

Doesn't online banking already solve this problem? and without the %5 cut that the credit card apps take for each transaction.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#34

Post by dregitsky »

Domenic_S wrote: post #7
mgkimsal wrote: post #3

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worke…

I feel that. We can be old geezers together. We've had a solution to this "problem" for centuries: cash. If your group is too lazy to ask the server to split the tab 4 ways, what in the world makes you think they're all going to pull out their apps and pay this way? Then there's inevitably someone who doesn't have a smartphone, or doesn't have that app, or doesn't want to sign up for a new payment account, or doesn't…

With restaurant bills, things get rather complicated when everyone orders different items, someone bought a Groupon, etc. Unless people are OK with over/under paying, a bill splitting app can be pretty useful to figure out what everyone actually owes.

Cash works well when everyone has it, but from what I've seen that doesn't happen all that often. Also, you get a lot of restaurants that refuse to itemize the bill (maybe their point of sale system doesn't support it), and sometimes they'll only take 1 credit card. Integration with payment apps is great for that. It goes beyond saving time...an app can help make sure people pay up and the IOUs don't become permanent.

Disclosure: I recently released Grouptuity (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grouptuity), which tries to solve these problems and integrates with Venmo.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#35

Post by T-R »

NZ_Matt wrote: post #33
T-R wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill split apps are really nice if you live in a shared housing/dorm type situation. At our hacker house, we're always going out for dinner together, or sending someone out to get food, or ordering groceries on Instacart - saves so much time not having to use cash, or keep track of who got what beforehand. Really wish this was an option while I was in college. We've been using Split&Pay ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/…

Doesn't online banking already solve this problem? and without the %5 cut that the credit card apps take for each transaction.

You can opt to connect a bank account to WePay instead of using a credit card, dramatically reducing the transaction fee.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#36

Post by T-R »

Domenic_S wrote: post #28
T-R wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill split apps are really nice if you live in a shared housing/dorm type situation. At our hacker house, we're always going out for dinner together, or sending someone out to get food, or ordering groceries on Instacart - saves so much time not having to use cash, or keep track of who got what beforehand. Really wish this was an option while I was in college. We've been using Split&Pay ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/…

> saves so much time not having to use cash ...really?

Yeah, really. For one, no one in the house carries cash, and no one wants to - that was even more true in college when a lot was paid for via campus ID. Not everyone has transportation to an ATM, either.

More importantly though, when people are splitting bills more than twice a week (often with different subsets of the group), getting paid back isn't just a pain, it gets to be a source of tension in the house - really quickly no one wants to split bills, because no one wants to have to harass their friends about money.

With the bill split app, the person who pays racks up reward points on their credit card, and all they have to do is type in how much everyone owes, and that's the end of it. Everyone else clicks a button and they're paid up.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#37

Post by davecyen »

"How much does it cost? Per transaction, contributors will be charged 3.5% on whatever they chip in for a Credit Card Processing Fee. GroupMe charges a .99 convenience fee."

They also state that they are using Balanced Payments to process the payments, which charges 2.9% + 30c per payout (and additional 25c per deposit). I'm skeptical that users would even be willing to pay this rate...

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#38

Post by mgkimsal »

dregitsky wrote: post #34
Domenic_S wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that. We can be old geezers together. We've had a solution to this "problem" for centuries: cash. If your group is too lazy to ask the server to split the tab 4 ways, what in the world makes you think they're all going to pull out their apps and pay this way? Then there's inevitably someone who doesn't have a smartphone, or doesn't have that app, or doesn't want to sign up for a new payment account, or doesn't…

With restaurant bills, things get rather complicated when everyone orders different items, someone bought a Groupon, etc. Unless people are OK with over/under paying, a bill splitting app can be pretty useful to figure out what everyone actually owes. Cash works well when everyone has it, but from what I've seen that doesn't happen all that often. Also, you get a lot of restaurants that refuse to itemize the bill (ma…

Usually, there's a minimum charge ('gratuity') for parties of 6 or 8 or more, so they better damn well split the bills for us. I've had it be a problem twice in the past 6 years of dining out, and once was sort of my own doing (we had a party of 24 on a Friday night - I just paid it as a single thing vs having everyone split it up - it was an unusual event). The other time it happened was a party of 5 and the server refused to split up the bill. We all chipped in something, but I don't go back there anymore.

Maybe it's a bigger problem in some areas of the world, but not mine.

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#39

Post by Domenic_S »

T-R wrote: post #36
Domenic_S wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> saves so much time not having to use cash ...really?

Yeah, really. For one, no one in the house carries cash, and no one wants to - that was even more true in college when a lot was paid for via campus ID. Not everyone has transportation to an ATM, either. More importantly though, when people are splitting bills more than twice a week (often with different subsets of the group), getting paid back isn't just a pain, it gets to be a source of tension in the house - reall…

> Not everyone has transportation to an ATM, either.

Do they go grocery shopping? Get cash back when paying with debit. It's free and handy.

> no one wants to have to harass their friends about money.

Sounds like more of a personality issue... clearly they have the means to pay if clicking a button works. Back in the dark ages my roommates and I just kept a running tally of who owes what on the whiteboard. Kinda nice because you can use those amounts as "accounts" -- I owe you $20 for internet, but 4 days later you owe me $20 for dinner, so we're square. No need for a transaction at all. We'd settle up, if need be, at the end of the month by writing checks. These days you don't even have to go to the bank to deposit them.

> With the bill split app, the person who pays racks up reward points on their credit card

...and then pays 4%. Worth it?

Re: GroupMe: Split the Bill

#40

Post by T-R »

Domenic_S wrote: post #39
T-R wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, really. For one, no one in the house carries cash, and no one wants to - that was even more true in college when a lot was paid for via campus ID. Not everyone has transportation to an ATM, either. More importantly though, when people are splitting bills more than twice a week (often with different subsets of the group), getting paid back isn't just a pain, it gets to be a source of tension in the house - reall…

> Not everyone has transportation to an ATM, either. Do they go grocery shopping? Get cash back when paying with debit. It's free and handy. > no one wants to have to harass their friends about money. Sounds like more of a personality issue... clearly they have the means to pay if clicking a button works. Back in the dark ages my roommates and I just kept a running tally of who owes what on the whiteboard. Kinda nice…

Not sure why you're so insistent this is a non-problem (to the point of implying that I or my housemates have personality issues, much less) - it's not like we haven't tried cash. It sucked, so my housemate made an app, and it's awesome.

> Do they go grocery shopping?

Not really - in college most people relied on the meal plan. At the house, we make heavy use of Amazon and Instacart. Those who do shop still don't enjoy having to remember to get cash and make change.

> Sounds like a personality issue

People forget, or just forget to grab cash, because it's not something they normally do, and no one enjoys playing debt collector. WePay can hold balances, too, so the app is basically just a more convenient version of the whiteboard, but with the extra feature of saving a trip to the ATM.

If obtaining cash was somehow related to a personality issue, but that person was otherwise a good housemate, it'd be worth it to throw some technology at the problem and make it a non-issue.

> checks

People are more likely to have a computer, so there's no need to add paper and OCR into the mix when there are better options.

> and then pays 4%

Only if the retailer is passing the transaction fee onto the customer, in which case they can pay with some other method.

People paying debts can link a bank account, so their transaction fee is maybe 50 cents.

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