

Ask HN: Review my debt tracking app, Piggy Back - avand
http://www.piggyback.it

======
javery
The site looks nice and I get the idea, I think the only problem is that I
would see this as way to formal with my friends and family. If I pick up
dinner with friends, or if I pay his part of the cab fare.. he just buys me
dinner or a beer later. This seems too cold and formal for most uses.

Now for something like parents lending to their kids it would make more sense,
or formal loans between friends (which is usually a bad idea)

~~~
catch404
I agree, for formal occasions (a pre arranged meal with friends) this is
perfect. Though it may be best as an iphone app where the phone can be passed
around and everyone deducts their own meal. How do yo u know who ordered what?

For a night out it seems a bit too formal.

~~~
avand
My goal would be for people to be able to create debts in any number of simple
ways:

* An iPhone/Android/Blackberry app * Tweets * Emails (cc'ing Piggy Back)

Even for a casual night out if you could just snap a picture of the receipt
and deal with it later, it could be really useful. Especially, where there's
alcohol involved.

------
avand
Piggy Back was built to solve the problem of constantly owing or being owed by
friends and family. It simply keeps a running balance of the debts between
people.

The plans are to make it easier and easier to create these debts by leveraging
email and Twitter.

Let me know what you think!

~~~
nixme
My friends and I are heavy users of BillMonk so your service definitely
interests me.

However for the example in your video, BillMonk is clearly superior. With
BillMonk, one person pays, takes home the itemized receipt and enters it in.
Then for each item, they specify who ate or shared it. BillMonk totals
everyone's part and automatically assigns the debt. The tax and tip are also
split based on each person's total percentage of the bill.

It seems with Piggy Back, the payer would need to figure out each person's
split manually and file multiple debt reports. How are you improving on
BillMonk's model?

~~~
avand
Piggy Back's goal is to make it ridiculously easy to create debts between
people. This is our first version and can't wait to release some of the other
features we have in the hopper.

------
ryanhuff
Here are a few ideas. The debit/credit terminology is too formal. Use
something like "I owe" and "I am owed".

I can see myself using this if it was more closely focused on helping me track
who I owe money. The confirmation system you have is too formal.

How about this. I can record who I owe money, or record who owes me money. If
I owe John money, I can optionally choose to send him a note (email) as a
friendly reminder. Maybe integrate with Facebook so he can choose from a list
of his friends. No need to remember an email address. I can also have it send
me reminders to my facebook account or email.

~~~
avand
Great feedback. Other's have noted the formality of those two buttons, and I'm
going to nix them for something that communicates better.

Facebook integration is coming.

------
mishmax
Have you seen billmonk.com? This is what I use currently to keep track of tabs
with roommates. BillMonk was bought by OgoPay in 2007 though and since then
they haven't changed a thing on the site.

~~~
nixme
Yeah, my friends and I use BillMonk and it sucks that it's stagnated so much.
When I read the headline, I was hoping someone had released a new service that
fixes the small problems we have with BillMonk.

~~~
avand
It's unfortunate that BillMonk has stagnated.

It currently is cumbersome to enter in multiple debts simultaneously (i.e.
splitting a big check). However, we're developing this functionality now and
are excited to debut it.

------
genieyclo
I'm wondering why you have a Twitter login instead of a Facebook connect
button, since most friends and family are probably going to be on Facebook,
not Twitter.

~~~
avand
Facebook Connect is coming soon. Too much to do, so little time!

------
mattwdelong
There is an even simpler remedy to this: Don't give or lend money if you can't
afford to lose it. Similarly, don't borrow money if you can't pay it back.

I just buy friends/family a beer, or food/items with the likely event that it
will be reciprocated down the road. Even if it doesn't balance, they're not my
client and I don't ever intend to bill my friends. At least, that's not how I
roll.

Edit: I think maybe I need to clarify. I think this is a serious problem they
may need to address with their app. I don't think I am a one off person, I am
sure people have similar principles as me. What I am saying is that I can't
see myself using this app to add a friend only to say "Hey, you owe me $8.95,
please pay up"; the landing page does not convince me otherwise.

------
ashishbharthi
Back in my roommates days we used shared google spreadsheet with few formulas
setup. It worked perfectly for us.

