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Yap or Venmo
If there was a new type of group expense consolidation app in the market today, would you use it or would you stick to existing apps like Venmo? My name is Omar Jandali and I am a full stack / back-end web developer out of Los Angeles, CA. I am currently building and developing a new type of expense application that will allow groups of users seamlessly split expenses and transfer money between users.
How it works
Lets say you are with a group of your closest friends and as a group, you decided to take a trip together. There are going to be several expense that all the members are going to split in order to pay for the trip. With Yap, you will create a group within the app. A host will be selected from the members and the host will make all the initial payments for the trip. After an expense payment, host will input all the expense information as well as how it will be split. Expenses can be split evenly among all or individually. After each user verifies the expense, money will be transferred from their Yap account to the host's Yap account before being transferred to the users linked bank account. Each user will link their bank account (similar to Venmo) through Account number and Routing Number or bank account login.
Behind Yap
This idea came to me after 2 cousins, my brother, and I went on a trip to Cancun. The entire trip was amazing, but there was one part of the trip that is a hassle to deal with. If you have not guessed what it is, well it was paying for expenses as a group. Whether it was a restaurant, hotel, car, or activities, everyone was pulling out cash and credit cards and figuring out how to pay and who owes money. After looking I couldn't find any app that includes every part of group expenses like Yap.
Would you use Yap
If an app like Yap was developed and released, would you or someone you know use an app like this to split expenses and transfer money immediately?
- nxsynonym 9y agoI currently use Venmo and Cash (by Square). I prefer Cash for it's simplicity and lack of social-media style alerts and notifications. The only reason I use Venmo is because it is popular (at least with my peers/friends). I like the idea of Yap, it seems like a nice way to track group expenses and make sure everything is divided up equally. One suggestion - an option to "pre-settle" would be nice. I.e -- if me and a group are planning a vacation ahead of time and know what our expenses are ahead of time, it would be nice to settle between the group before making the actual charge. The only thing that would prevent me from using this is if there is any social-media aspect. That's my least favorite part of Venmo and I don't really understand the reasoning behind it in the first place.
- omarjandali 9y agoI really appreciate that feedback. I wanted to add a checklist option for a group, where the host adds a list of expected expenses and as the money is collected for an item in the list, the item is checked as complete. Lets say someone doesn't have all the money needed to pay for the expenses, he will be able to pre-transfer an expense which will send the money from other users before the host pays for an expense, but additional security measures will be required for security. Another idea I have as of right now was to create a way that within the group, the host can add expenses in bulk. What I mean is that the host can calculate all the expense he knows he will have to pay (car, hotel, gas) and request it all at once as one single amount. When money is taken from that bulk amount and used to pay for hotel, you will be notified with the amount for the hotel. Would you prefer something like each group you are in has its own balance that everyone puts money into when the group is created and it is tracked as the host spends (similar to a Whatsapp group with its own balance), or user accounts where money is transferred after every transaction like Venmo. There will be no social aspect of this application as of right now. It is purely productivity and finance application.