CheqPls

What CheqPls is

CheqPls works out who owes what on a shared bill: photograph the receipt, let it read the lines, and have each person mark their own.

It offers several ways to split, ranging from equal shares to one decided by chance, which is what sets it apart. A caveat on sourcing: the product's own site would not load when checked, so this account rests on secondary sources. It is a consumer tool, and it turns up in lists of office software despite being about restaurant bills.

What you can do with it

A receipt is scanned and the separate items and prices are pulled out, so the sums work from the real order instead of a single figure.

People then choose what they had, and what each owes comes out of that, which covers the case where nobody wants to split the total evenly. There is also a random option for handing out shares, aimed at groups who cannot settle who owes what.

Who it is for

Groups splitting meals or shared costs, and whoever always gets landed with the mental maths.

Shared households and colleagues on expenses are named. Someone who always pays separately has no need for it.

Groups who eat out together often are the obvious users, along with households sharing costs. Anybody who settles up separately by default has nothing to divide, and colleagues on formal expenses should use their finance system.

Friends splitting a holiday meal are the natural case.

What to watch out for

Nothing could be confirmed: no price, no company, no account of what happens to your data — and for something that takes pictures of receipts, settling that comes first.

Such a picture records the venue, the amount, and frequently the tail of a card number — more intimate than people expect, so how long it is kept counts for more than the app's modest purpose implies. Reading receipts accurately is harder than it appears, especially with faded print or a long itemised bill: if one line is read wrongly, a modest amount lands on the wrong person, which defeats the whole reason for not just splitting it evenly. It is aimed at consumers rather than workplaces, so finding it filed under business software is misleading. Assigning shares by lot is a gimmick; it cannot sort out a real argument over who should pay.