Expensure – Tracking Friendly Expense Sharing
Expense tracking apps aren’t new. In fact, they’re one of the oldest uses for the Web and there are (literally) hundreds of thousands of them out there, online. Nearly all of them, though, are for business use so that sales forces, executives, and so forth can more easily track their expenses for reimbursement.
Expensure.com is not like those. It’s made for personal expenses that are shared amongst non-business associates.
If you rent an apartment, say, and have a couple of roommates, Expensure can help you split the rent, utilities, etc. and easily track who has and hasn’t paid their share of each. So let’s say the rent is due on the 1st and is to be split into thirds. It’s your responsibility to pay it (you’re on the lease), so you are the one owed the other 2/3 of the rent. As each roomie pays, their 1/3 is removed from the “owe.”
The same goes for utilities, food, whatever you want to include on the Expensure setup. Even travel expenses amongst friends or family going on vacation can be tracked and split through Expensure. The splits don’t have to be even either, so one person can be responsible for a larger portion than another.
There are other apps like Expensure, of course, but they aren’t getting the kind of publicity that Expensure has gotten. BillMonk, for instance, isn’t nearly as slick and has been around for two years with little market headway. The best part of Expensure, though, is circular debt resolution.
The circle of debt can be pretty complicated. If person A owes B $15 while C owes person A $5, but person B owes person C $5, then in the end, person A only owes $10 to B.  Expensure works that out and cancels debts or re-routes payments so that everyone is paid more easily. This makes tracking expenses a lot less of a headache too.
Expensure hit the radar at PayPal’s SF event in October and is currently in open beta. It is owned by Harmonypark, a London-based company. Signup is free.
