Group Digital Wallet for Splitting Group Purchase Bills
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing payment systems face difficulties in tracking and managing purchases made by multiple customers in a group setting, especially when they are not seated together, leading to challenges in creating a single bill and splitting costs fairly.
Innovation Solution
A digital wallet system that allows customers to create a group tab associated with a social gathering, linked to a financial account, where images of group members are used for authentication, enabling seamless tracking and splitting of purchases across multiple devices, and facilitating a single payment or reimbursement among members.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a single bill is provided for a group of customers, then payment processing is simplified, but tracking purchases when customers move around becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a digital wallet system as an intermediary between customers and merchants. The system uses mobile devices to track purchases, associate them with group members through images, and maintain a running tab. This intermediary solution resolves the contradiction by enabling both accurate purchase tracking and simplified single-payment processing without requiring customers to remain seated together.
2Measurement precision
If individual purchases are tracked for each customer, then purchase accuracy is improved, but creating a single group bill becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges individual purchase tracking with group bill creation through a centralized digital wallet system. The system automatically aggregates purchases from multiple customers, associates them with group members using image recognition, and generates a single consolidated bill. This eliminates the complexity of manual bill creation while maintaining accurate tracking of individual purchases.
3Ease of operation
If group purchases are consolidated into one bill, then payment simplicity is improved, but fair cost distribution among members becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the group bill into individual portions attributable to each group member. The system tracks which purchases were made by which member, calculates individual costs, and enables flexible splitting options (equal division, proportional to consumption, or custom allocation). This segmentation allows both simplified consolidated payment and fair individual cost distribution.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and computer program products for a digital wallet for a group of people. A group of customers may gather for an event, e.g., a party, in which each person in the group may purchase goods or services on behalf of the group from a merchant. A customer device executing a digital wallet application program acts like a wallet for the entire group. The customer device creates group tab. The customer device associates images of each person in the group to the group tab, and submits information on the group, including the images, to a merchant device operated by the merchant. The merchant device opens the group tab for managing purchases related to the group. At the end of the event, upon receiving an input to close the tab, the customer device can receive a single bill including a total amount, and divide the total amount among people in the group.