Tab - The simple bill splitter

I love the idea of this app - and if it worked properly it would be a lifesaver. However this app is terrible at itemizing items. I used a very clear photo of my receipt- the app included the “subtotal”, “tax”, and “total” amounts as line items that I then had to manually delete. Then, the app added a 58 dollar tip and I have no idea where they came from even after investigating my receipt. A 20% tip on our bill (which we left) was only ~20 dollars. This app also does not let you edit the dollar amount of tax charged (in my case the app put it down as 0, which isn’t correct), which seems like a massive oversight. You should at least have the option to manually enter the amount of percentage of tax charged considering how bad the app is at itemizing. I am giving two stars, simply because the app DID itemize the actual items on my receipt correctly, with correct dollar amount and (close enough) names. With some manual override, I was about to get the bill within ~10 dollars of the actual amount paid - so in the end it can still be useful. This app has a lot of potential, it just needs a better algorithm at itemizing, and a manual override feature for the amount of tax paid.

Rarely do I write reviews. This app has likely saved me money (of me missing a few dollars/cents trying to figure out this math on my own) and so many headaches splitting bills of large groups at restaurants that do not want to take the time to do separate checks. Over time, I have actually found it easier to just use this app rather than asking the server to do separate checks. In my experience with Tab, if you’re willing to do the work of figuring out who got what yourself, your servers get the order right, your food comes quicker (since they don’t have to spend a long time at the computer typing everything in carefully), and it makes the experience for the group better as a whole. A few feature suggestions: Appetizers: A conversation that tends to come up when deciding who got what is “well this person are more of this than this person.” Can you create a way to say “this person had 4 of 12 items from this” instead of splitting it 12 ways and tapping it four times? Technically the app does this, but it requires a bit of extra taps. Alcohol: Guests may feel it’s appropriate to tip more for elaborate cocktails than they would for a pizza. Servers also tip out the bartender. Is there a way to figure out how to skew tips up based on how much of the bill was alcohol? For example, 15% for the food, 20% for the alcohol.

I recently used this app for the first time and was able to split a bill between seven people fairly easily and give them their total. I had a question come up later but could not get back to the details to verify that we had split the bill correctly, adding some audit trail would be really useful in this situation. Additionally, another great feature would be to be able to send out, via text or email, an itemized receipt to each of the bill participants. The people I regularly split large bills with have a wide range of comfort with technology, it would be nice to be able to send them something more detailed than just their totals but show them the items selected and their portion of taxes and tip. Asking them to join the bill from their device is way beyond what they would be willing to do. With these two enhancements, this would be the perfect app for my needs.