Top 5 Split Management Applications
Whenever a group of friends in a restaurant, on a weekend getaway, or when neighbors in a shared house pay something, dividing bills and computing how much each one owes another can be a dreary and laborious process when a large group of people is involved.
How do you divide the cost? How much should a person contribute? Service charge? Isn’t it complicated? It’s just for small bills such as rent, water, and electricity.
The good news is that we have modern applications to help split the bills. Below are the top 5 listed in The Muse:
- Splitwise – it is a free app for both Apple and Android gadgets. Splitwise lets you know how much and what you owe from someone, whether from a grocery run, travel expenses, or others. In just one click, you are ready to pay using PayPal.
- Billr – with the tagline “The quickest way to split a bill and calculate at restaurants and bars,” this split expense app lets an iPhone user calculate what every person owes for the food they ate and other shared expenses. However, it’s not for free – Billr costs 99 cents.
- Divvy – just a snap, and split the bill. The easiest, as you do not have to type anymore. Using your iPhone, just take a picture of the group’s receipt and drag every item to the one who will pay for it. Just like Billr, it is 99 cents.
- Venmo – a reminder to those who owe you. This app lets you send requests to your friends anytime for them to pay you. Venmo is available on App Store and Google Play.
- Bank of Me – tracking has never been so easy using this 99-cent app. You can list all your group’s expenses and track a record of your friends’ balances. It could also sync your contacts so you could send a reminder to your friends to pay you back.
Have you tried any of these? Life could be much easier if you do.
Expense Management in Europe
In Europe, expense management has also been modernized. Revolutionized solutions were introduced, which helped build the foundation for modern expense management. These new platforms are known to provide quicker and more transparent payment solutions. Clients are attracted by their unique features, which differentiate one application from another.
Tricount
A worldwide-leading expense application called “Tricount” headed by Jonathan Fallon and Guillebert de Dorlodot stood out from other companies in the industry. This company from Brussels, Belgium, focused on being neutral to whichever bank or financial institution the client would want to pay from. Hence, if you are a Tricount user, you have the freedom to choose a company with cheaper or even zero transfer fees and such.
Unlike other expense management applications, Tricount is not bounded to a number of banks or payment platforms. As per Fallon, they try to be as open and unbiased as possible. This means one does not need to be a bank “X” client to use their application.
Since they started in 2010, Tricount now has 5.2M registered customers and is giving them enough profit. Their clients are spread over several European countries – Belgium, Spain, France, and Italy – allowing users to split expenses among their friends and families. What’s more, the bill is categorized by its type and can be reimbursed for the outstanding balances through different payment systems.
To stand out more from its competitors, Tricount enables its users to make payments straightforwardly from their bank in just one click without requiring IBANs. It started in its based country, Belgium. This was made possible by establishing a partnership with Mastercard, a licensed virtual bank in Europe – Aion Bank, and a cloud-based banking-service provider, Vodeno.
As emphasized by Fallon in one of his interviews, the partnership gave them the opportunity that connects them to an open banking system which is easier in the region due to the revised Payment Services Directive, or PSD2. He also added that they wish to be fully launched with banks across Belgium before expanding to other markets.
Open Banking System in Europe
Since open banking started in 2019 in Europe, it is still viewed as a new approach in the banking industry across the region. As per Fallon, it raised several legal and technical challenges, and action must be taken by such FinTech companies as a Tricount.
Despite all those challenges, entrepreneurs like Fallon believe that open banking has a huge potential. Other than offering just payment processes for reimbursement, there are still many features that the system can offer. One of those is credit provisions.
Fallon explained that, for example, there might be a group of ten tourists who could register in Tricount. These people could use their account to take out loans for plain tickets and split the expense among themselves through their Tricount account.
In continuation, the two founders of Tricount aimed to build up their app’s social feature, creating a more interactive interface that includes comment sections and user interaction in a group.
In addition, they also announced that they would need to expand their business to increase the integration on PSD2 to open more opportunities in the industry.