What's a few dollars among friends?
You go to dinner with five friends. You pay the bill with your credit card and everyone agrees to settle up later. The next day you go to a movie with two of those same friends and they pay for your ticket and popcorn and tell you to take it out of what they already owe you. It turns out two others at the dinner are roommates and you owe them for last month's cable bill. At this rate, you'll need a spreadsheet to keep track of the money flow.
Or you can use the free, online service BillMonk. The site, now in its tenth month of operation, lets users keep a virtual running tally of who in your circle of friends owes what. Users who subscribe to the service can use their home computers to keep track of their account, but they can also add items on the go with a cell phone.
Chuck Groom and partner Gaurav Oberoi quit their jobs at Amazon.com to start the business.
The site currently doesn't generate any money. The partners decided against charging a fee for premium services. The name, BillMonk, is partly based on the pub the two creators were in when they were trying to come up with a name.