BillSplit.com QuickStart Instructions
Creating a BillSplit takes just 3 easy steps!
1. Add Bills to the Bills list
2. Add People to the Person List
3. Click "Calculate BillSplit"
How does the BillSplit get calculated?
These pages are written in ASP.NET with VB.NET in the code behind the
pages. The BillSplit engine class is designed to accept a dataset of
Bills and People and returns a set of plain-english instructions detailing who
pays and receives money to and from whom. (That was a mouthful). The
logic for BillSplit Basic starts by calculating the total of all the
bills. This total is then divided by the number of people included
in the BillSplit to determine each person's share of the bill. A set of
nested loops with intelligent logic iterates through the list of people who
pre-paid the bills to determine how much this person is owed and which person
to best pay to settle the balances with the least number of transactions.
(Another mouthful). These nested loops actually generate an output
dataset. The data in this dataset looks something like this: (more to
come)
Where's my DATA stored?
Your data isn't stored anywhere on my server! Hard to believe? Well it's
true! First of all, I really have no interest in your data (sorry to
disappoint!). In fact, the data is sent back to your computer as a
cookie. The cookie contains your Bills and People list as a compressed
string. This cookie takes up very little space on your hard drive (less
than 1000 bytes) -- that's smaller than Google's homepage logo image!
Storing the data in your computer's cookie container makes my work a LOT
easier. I don't need to worry about designing or maintaining fancy
state-of-the-art databases and YOU don't have to worry about registration or
log in!
Just understand that if you ever feel the urge to tidy up your computer and
clear out your cookies, your BillSplit data will be cleared out as well.
Can I share BillSplit data with other people? Can I save my BillSplit data?
I'm working on this functionality. More to come.
How does this site make money?
I don't have any plans on making money with this site (other than accepting
donations if you'd like to buy me a drink). I feel that I've gained so
much from the Internet (free email, awesome search engines, free chat programs,
music - legal of course, etc) that I should be giving back somehow. This
is my contribution back to the community.