Tweaks to Debt Shuffling

Gosh! Who would have thought debt shuffling would be such a hot topic? Thank you all for the wonderful feedback. We love to hear how to make BillMonk better, and are writing to tell you that we listened to your comments and did just that.

With the new changes, everything on the site will look the same, but the final results from each shuffle should be closer to what you expect.

To explain what we did, let’s talk about the different things you can optimize for when you’re shuffling debts:

1. The number of checks left to write after the shuffle (you want this number of be low).
2. Who the remaining checks need to be written to (it’s easier write checks to people you see often).
3. The dollar amount of the checks you have to write (smaller is better).

When we launched, we optimized for (1) and (2). We thought the convenience of settling up with people you see the most would be worth it even if the amounts of those checks were a little larger.

Thanks to your feedback, though, we’ve learned that (3) is more important than (2), so we’ve updated BillMonk to settle debts the way you like.

If you’re happy with the debt shuffles you’ve already created, then by all means stick with them! But if you tried it and didn’t like the numbers you saw, delete your existing shuffles and give it another shot.