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Why hasn't anyone built a receipt tracker app to verify restaurant tips?

1 points by brownieai ↗ HN
I’ve been thinking about a simple idea: a mobile app that lets you scan your restaurant receipt via OCR, then matches the scanned total (including the tip you manually added) with the final charge pulled from your credit card data (using a service like Plaid). This app would flag any discrepancies between what you signed for and what eventually posts to your account—basically, a tool for ensuring you aren’t overcharged on tips, plus a handy digital archive for all your receipts.

Despite how many people deal with messy paper receipts and potential tip tampering, I haven’t seen anyone tackle this niche yet. I’m curious about what might be holding people back: • Technical challenges? Is OCR accuracy (especially with handwritten tips) a major roadblock? • Integration hurdles? Are there regulatory or security issues with linking bank/credit card data via services like Plaid for this purpose? • Market demand? Could it be that users don’t see the value or are hesitant to adopt a tool that monitors their transactions so closely?

I’d love to hear from anyone who has thought about this, tried building something similar, or has insights into why such an app hasn’t caught on. What are the hidden difficulties or limitations? Any feedback, experiences, or ideas are welcome!

Looking forward to your thoughts.

10 comments

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markus_zhang
I guess most people don't care about small discrepancies and those who care can just do it manually.
brownieai
True, small errors might be ignored manually, but automating checks saves time and catches cumulative mistakes. Plus, it could highlight spending patterns or serve as a receipt archive. What do you think?
tencentshill
I don't think most servers are that dishonest, especially when their income almost entirely relies on tips.
brownieai
Agreed—most servers are honest, but even occasional errors add up. Beyond tip verification, the tech could be used for comprehensive expense tracking and digital receipt management. Would that broader use be valuable?
iwanttocomment
First, the credit card company I use for dining will notify me via email if they think there has been an exorbitant tip outside of 45% or so.

Second, this would involve me taking a photograph of the receipt at the table, which doesn't seem like a lot as a solo diner, but let's just say that it's a weird gesture at the end of a romantic dinner or a gathering of friends, which are the situations where I'm going out to eat. It's especially weird so long as it's clear via either my credit card issuer's notifications or via a scan of my charges at the end of the month that something is up.

At the end of the day, I would expect to lose time and recoup zero dollars via this app.

brownieai
Credit card alerts help, but this verifies your signed receipt against the final charge automatically. It catches subtle errors that alerts might miss—and can double as a digital expense tracker for budgeting, tax, or work expenses. Maybe that is a better product strategy?
iwanttocomment
I've been around for many rotations around our sun, have greatly enjoyed dining out with credit cards for several decades, and I review my receipts and bills each month. I have never, ever - and we're talking thousands of transactions at this point - caught a restaurant billing me incorrectly after the tip is applied.

Not to mention, across Toast and InKind and several other modern POS vendors these days, I'm increasingly not signing a paper receipt, instead tapping my card and inputting a tip at a terminal the server has brought to the table or just using my phone. (The receipt gets emailed).

Maybe you're not in the US? (Although my experiences abroad has been that other countries were actually ahead of the curve in terms of tableside electronic POS, and/or that tipping was not a thing.) Is this a problem you personally have been facing?

If you're looking at tracking work expenses, all of a sudden you're up against Expensify, who have receipt scanning apps not at all unlike what you've proposed... and integrations with a whole lot of corporate billing packages.

To answer your question, as a reasonably frequent diner both personally and in business, nobody's done this because personally it's a very uncommon problem that already has some safeguards in place for many, and in most cases could be rectified by a chargeback, or in business, solutions are widely available.

JohnFen
> the credit card company I use for dining will notify me via email if they think there has been an exorbitant tip outside of 45% or so

I once left a 100% tip and my CC company straight-up blocked the transaction. I get it, and that's certainly the safest response, but it was very embarrassing. Now that I think of it, that was when I started tipping in cash.

elmerfud
They have this kind of thing, it's used constantly by business travelers. In my 4 years of business travel and tracking every expense I only noticed one time that there was a discrepancy. So it does happen but personal experience says it's rare.
Two4
Is it not commonplace for US banks to send a text notification for card transactions? In my country, this is considered table stakes when choosing a bank card or credit card.