Anyone try Buxfer or Billmonk?

[DelawareJim]

Read an interesting article in the Post about 3 college students who created a website called Buxfer, www.buxfer.com to track who owes who what. The article also mentioned another site called "Billmonk", www.billmonk.com that does the same thing. They basically just track and trade IOU's.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01410.html

Anyway, it got me thinking...... Instead of all this "high finance" who owes who how much, can I Paypall you, I'm out of singles, I owe you a dollar jazz, if the club used something like one of these websites, we could probably just track how much we owe to whom each month and do away with handling cash all together unless someone really wanted too.

That way if I owed Aaron $3 from the December meeting and I set up an account recording the "debt" to Aaron, and he bought one of my plants for $2 at the January meeting, he could credit the account $2, and we could agree to keep the $1 balance in the account, or I would just pay him a buck.

I'm sure it would make Sean's job a little easier.

[krisw]

I definitely like the concept of making the auctions a little bit easier at the auctions. Ghazanfar and I were talking about bringing a laptop armed with a pre-made GWAPA spreadsheet that would allow items to be inputted and associated with the sellers. Then, all he'd have to do is key in the buyer name and amount as it's sold, and at the end of the auction, he'd instantly have the totals for everyone. I believe this system has worked well for CCA for some time.

Buxfer sounds like an interesting service, but it sounds like a lot to keep track of, and key in after the fact. Plus we would have to get everyone to logon and actually use it. Out of curiosity, I did create myself an account to look around, and it wasn't immediately apparent to me from the UI/lingo how we'd repurpose it. If I'm missing something, please slap me over the head.

[DelawareJim]

Actually, I browsed Billmonk and they seem to have something a little closer to trading IOU's. What I don't know is, would it know that you, Krisw is the same as the Krisw I have so if I entered I owe you $3 and you entered you owe me $2 they would link and show a net I owe you $1 for each of us. Or, would each have to enter the opposite sides of the same coin for each account to show the $1 net I owe you.

Wouldn't know that until I tried it.

Cheers.
Jim

[SCMurphy]

Good idea, except there are a few of us who "sell" and a few of us who "buy" in such amounts that we'd still have to handle cash. Aaron (recent prez) almost never buys anything and I am sure he has sold more than anyone in the auctions lately. A couple other people haven't put anything in the Auction yet but buy up a lot of stuff. The idea is good but there is still an inflow and an out flow of cash and usually the club gets a cut. We didn't take a cut this last time because I wanted Aaron (not the prez) to get all his money for the aquarium and light that he sold, so I didn't take a cut from anyone to be fair. Usually we get 25%.

[DelawareJim]

Kris; A quick tour of Billmonk uses e-mail addresses as identifiers so the site should do the work.

Sean; In that case, I think the laptop spreadsheet is probably the way to go. I was actually thinking more along the lines of the "average" member who buys some meetings and sells others or buys and sells at each. I think in my case then, I'll just remember to bring all one's.

Cheers.
Jim