Gauravide
My roommates and I kept losing money on shared receipts. So I designed a fix.
Snap a shared receipt, tap who had what, and it lands in Splitwise, item by item, tax included, in the receipt's own currency.
My role Product designer and owner. I designed it and directed Claude Code, which wrote the code.
- $1,337.26 split in 30 days
- 15 real splits
- 1 weekend to the first version
In 30 seconds
Shared receipts sat unsplit for months. Nobody remembered who had what, so someone always paid more.
Designed a path from photo to Splitwise where every receipt has a way forward, then directed Claude Code to build it.
15 real splits worth $1,337.26 in 30 days. One friend even shared his split with the group, unprompted.
"Who had the oat milk?"
My roommates and I order groceries together. Typing a big Walmart order into Splitwise item by item meant it sat for months, until nobody remembered who had what.
Restaurants are worse: lost receipts, dish names that don't match the menu, tax and tip on top. My roommate Mayur works in finance and kept the tax maths in Excel. Most of the time, we just split evenly.
- Alex
Walmart order is here. Who had what? 🧾
- Sam
Busy today, will check later.
- 3 weeks laterSam
Wait, the oat milk wasn't mine.
- You
Let's just split it evenly.
- "Not mine"Nobody remembers. Someone absorbs the cost.
- Even ≠ fairWhoever had less pays for whoever had more.
- Tax by handFood and household items are taxed at different rates.
Meet people where their money already is.
Each choice rejected a reasonable option.
I choseSend it to Splitwise
Over
A new app to track moneyEveryone already uses Splitwise. A new place to keep money makes people hesitate.
I choseA web page
Over
An app-store appNo install for one receipt. The web works on any phone, tablet, or laptop.
I chosePhotograph the receipt
Over
Connect a Walmart or Amazon accountNeither lets you read your own orders. A photo works everywhere.
I choseFree, on free tiers
Over
Paid services up frontHosting, database, and readers all run free. Anything paid waits until it proves necessary.
Tap who had what. The maths does itself.
Add the receipt, check it, tap who had what, send. Totals update on every tap.
- Tomatoes, 4 bagsFood 1.8%$5.96
- Oat milkFood 1.8%$4.49
- SourdoughFood 1.8%$5.99
- Laundry detergentHousehold 8.1%$14.99
Tax · Food 1.8% · Household 8.1%$1.51
Receipt total$32.94
- YouItems $2.00 · tax $0.04$2.04
- AlexItems $10.96 · tax $0.20$11.16
- SamItems $3.48 · tax $0.06$3.54
Interactive example · Nothing is sent and no account is connected.
Built for real bills
The same steps in the real app, with a sample receipt.
- One line, several people
- Card for most, cash for the rest
- Tax to whoever bought the item
- Any currency
- Multi-page PDFs
Add: take a photo, choose a file, or type it in.
- Add: take a photo, choose a file, or type it in.
- Check: every line read back to fix.
- Split: tap who had each line.
- Confirm: who paid, and what each person owes.
- Done: it is in everyone's Splitwise.
The badge that lied.
On the first night, before anyone used it, a multi-agent adversarial audit surfaced four critical failures that survived repeated attempts to disprove them. The worst was the green check.
Items read $10.00
Receipt says $100.00
✓ Matches receiptOne person owes $100.00Items read $10.00
Receipt says $100.00
$90.00 missingSend stays locked until it matchesA way forward for every scan
A reader will fail sometimes; the task must not. Every scan, last 30 days:
- 1Read automaticallyThe AI vision reader28
- 2Backup reader, every line checkedWhen the free daily allowance runs out39
- 3Typed in by handAlways available, never rate limited0
The free AI reader allows 20 requests a day for the whole app, so most scans used the backup.
A long receipt lost half its items, and nothing said so.
One user report started a 3.5-hour session I directed. It found 9 failures; none showed an error.
- Found by testing
An iPhone PDF lost every page after the first.
WhySafari turned the PDF into a one-page image before upload.
FixPDFs skip that step. Found only by testing the live site in Safari's engine.
- Raised by me
A £20 receipt reached Splitwise as $20.
WhyCurrency, dates, and tax words all assumed the US.
FixRead the currency off the receipt, and let people correct it in one tap.
- Found by testing
A correct total next to 0 items.
WhyA receipt without tax letters broke the expected format for every line.
FixAccept it, and let one bad line cost one line, not the receipt.
See all 9 fixesWhat the person saw, why, and what changed+
- An iPhone PDF lost every page after the first.Safari turned the PDF into a one-page image before upload. PDFs skip that step. Found only by testing the live site in Safari's engine.Found by testing
- A £20 receipt reached Splitwise as $20.Currency, dates, and tax words all assumed the US. Read the currency off the receipt, and let people correct it in one tap.Raised by me
- A correct total next to 0 items.A receipt without tax letters broke the expected format for every line. Accept it, and let one bad line cost one line, not the receipt.Found by testing
- A long PDF returned only some items.The AI's answer was cut off at a length limit nobody had set. Set the limit, and name a cut-off answer instead of hiding it.Reported by a user
- The backup reader read page one only.It kept the first page of results and dropped the rest. Read every page.Found by testing
- Screenshots of emailed receipts read as blank.Transparent images turned into black boxes. Paint white behind them first.Found by testing
- People were scanning, but scans weren't counted.The app replied before saving the scan, so the save was cut off. Wait for the save, and never let it block the receipt.Raised by me
- Yen would have shown ¥12 for ¥1,235.Money is stored in hundredths, and yen has none. Don't offer it yet. Refuse rather than misreport.Found by testing
- Two tests failed for no visible reason.Test data carried a fixed date that drifted out of the 7-day window. Use relative dates.Found by testing
A £20 receipt should never become $20.
Friends abroad asked if it worked there. So I made it true. The app reads the receipt's evidence, strongest first.
On the receiptLatte £4.50 · VAT 20%
- A printed code, such as EUR or CAD
- A symbol only one currency uses: £, €, ₹
- The tax word, which names the country
- Otherwise US dollars, and the person can change it
Currency GBPshown on the review screen, changeable in one tap
A bare $ is ambiguous and Splitwise can't change currency later, so it's a one-tap control. Yen is refused rather than misreported. No one outside the US has used it yet.
Real people, real money.
Counts only, from the app's own dashboard.
Oct 1, 2026. Scans include my launch-day testing, so I count splits and money.
The Denny's lunch
- Labor Day
Back from camping at Mogollon, Viresh paid for everyone's lunch at Denny's.
- 5–6 days later
He posted the receipt photo. Replies trickled in: "1st is mine", "I had the 2nd".
- The guess
He was guessing prices and tax. I told him to try Gauravide.
- Sent
It landed in everyone's Splitwise, and he shared the summary link, unprompted.
Mayur, who did the tax maths in Excel, said he no longer had to. (Paraphrased.)
What I owned
- The problem, from my own receipts
- Every step of the flow and its edge cases
- The product calls: Splitwise, web, free, privacy
- What to test, and what to refuse
What Claude Code did
- The code and the tests
- Most of the debugging, which I directed and checked
The AI wrote the code. Knowing what to ask, and when to say "not supported", was the job.
Gaurav Basantani
- Design the failure path first: all 67 recorded scans reached an editable result, most through the backup reader.
- Works for me is not works for everyone. One friend's question exposed four assumptions.
- Money tools earn trust by refusing: no send until it matches, no currency it can't show correctly.
Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Splitwise.
Tailwind UDS
A design system where designers and AI tools speak the same language.
Your move.
Open to Product Designer roles anywhere in the US.
gaurav.inbox29@gmail.com