Scred, a Finnish startup that lets friends track and manage track their shared expenses and debts, has come up with a brand new twist. With MiniCorps (as in mini-corporation) you can track income and expenses for a whole group, work out if you are making profit or loss and know how much revenue you’ve made. The MiniCorps application will also receive money and sell items online, with all of it tracked by Scred without anyone having to touch Microsoft Excel. All the cash is handled via Paypal, which seems limiting for now but at least it makes it pretty accessible. Suddenly amateur rock bands everywhere can rejoice.
So groups that use MiniCorps get simple and lightweight shops so they can immediately start selling stuff like tickets, MP3s, CDs, t-shirts, donations, memberships you name it. The application is most likely to appeal to lightweight companies like bands, film crews, artists, associations and especially virtual companies like many startups.
MiniCorps is not unlike a simpler version of another Finnish startup Fruugo (still in private beta), but simpler and pretty easy to start making and tracking money.
Scred’s focus remains on tracking people’s money as a group. In this respect their competitors include BillMonk, Buxfer, and Obopay. But they are also they are building links to external services which will then integrate with Scred (such as tickets and t-shirts and so on). They are also planning an API, an easy ticket selling system, and more complex accounting for bigger companies.
For the moment the MiniCorp functions are in beta but we have 300 invites for TechCrunch readers who can use the invite code “TC300″. Log in and go to the place for creating pools, where you can enter the code.
I am very happy with buxfer. It already does that Scred do and it is constantly adding new features.
Love the update via cell
… and is currently offline with an unpleasant error message.
Buxfer has done a pretty decent job with what they had (seeing the error as well), although I believe even they lacked good support for multiple currencies and a mobile client (that works offline).
But I can’t remember them having anything even near to what MiniCorps are: actually being able, as a group, to easily track income and expenses and to have payments and purchases integrated to your group accounting.
a friend of friendship, I bloger from indonesian, I would like to ask how that can link back from this site, please help
Just wanted to point out that the “MiniCorp” feature is private beta and requires an invite code.
oops. sorry read article more carefully. disregard.
We use bizroof to track income and expense, and xero to do invoices. I think MiniCorps’s feature is good for families / couples, but not for companies.
We looked at Xero with Scred and it’s a great service for what it does. Good for more serious accounting needs in a business. However, that’s a somewhat different demography. Xero’s not about a bunch of mates getting together to organise or do something, or selling some cool stuff online. Scred is lightweight, fun and easy, with that strong social aspect.
And btw. I don’t think that this statement will actually hold since Scred is hosting the shops:
Payment takes place via PayPal and is directed to the MiniCorp’s own PayPal account. Money does not flow through Scred. Scred accepts no responsibility for any delivered goods as the transaction is completely between the buyer and the MiniCorp. If there are problems they should be resolved by contacting the MiniCorp or PayPal directly.
check out http://www.spendji.com – they do a lot of the same group functionality and are not in beta
spendji beta – hmm. maybe not in “private” beta.
Scred… an awful name with an equally awful logo
So was that an offer from the ImageCo guys to come up with something better … ? ;-P
To be honest, we have absolutely no plans to touch the logo, apart from detailing, spacing and typography (the logo here on TC is already different from on the website). The concept in the logo will remain. Simple reason: we love it.
my thoughts exactly, the name is way to close to screwd, and when you’re talking about an online accounting system, not what you want to go with.
I do like the @$ symbol in the logo though, that is clever (though I think too subtle for most people to notice).
Best of luck Kristoffer
@mike technically we could do more than just PayPal. In fact we already did when we piloted some of this with the Alternative Party and Slush Helsinki. so the code is there. However then money goes through us and we’re being careful with that.
One step at a time…
Just adding that I’ve heard that some people weren’t sure where to use the code “TC300″. Just log in and go to the place for creating pools, where you can enter the code.
Apologies if that’s less obvious than it should be.
Congrats guys, the long awaited update is finally here, can’t wait to try it out. Scred is definitely one of my most useful mobile applications and I must say I also like the name and the logo.
Way to go, Scred!
You guys have shown some true entrepreneurship during last year, been a great example for all of us so it has been pleasure to follow your spirit and now hopefully your success.
I personally think it’ll be easier to find possibilities for co-operation between us than see us overlapping in any service area.