An Austin, Texas, company has developed a Web-based tool designed to take the plastic out of paying for food and drink.

ATX Innovation Inc. this month released a test version of TabbedOut, which enables users to pay restaurant and bar bills using mobile phones. The company is initially launching its smartphone application in Austin, Seattle, and Dallas.

Six Austin businesses are testing the tool with 55 beta testers, and CEO Rick Orr expects 20 more locations by the end of the month.

Earlier this week, ATX closed on a round of financing from a syndicate of local angel investors combined with Austin-based venture capital firms Trellis Partners and Raven Ventures.

TabbedOut, which is scheduled to be available at the iTunes App Store by January 14, is free to restaurant and bar owners. ATX would generate revenue through a 99-cent convenience charge per transaction.

Instead of using credit and debit cards, software installed at the establishment’s point-of-sale terminal syncs with the customer’s smartphone and tracks what has been ordered. The customer can then add a tip before closing out the tab from the phone.

The goal of TabbedOut is to provide users with convenience, security, and accuracy. Also, it eliminates the time-consuming handling of debit and credit cards, Orr said.

“For restaurants, it’s about speed,” he said. “It’s a cumulative effect.”

The company will first operate TabbedOut as an iPhone application and then develop an application for the Android platform.

Shangri-La and The Liberty, two Austin bars operated by Tyler Van Aken, have been testing TabbedOut since September.

Van Aken said 60 percent to 70 percent of his business is done through credit and debit cards, and anything that can shorten the amount of time servers spend processing transactions is good for his business.

“What TabbedOut essentially does is help with speed,” he said. “In the bar business, that’s extremely important because you could be serving someone else.”

As a prompt to forgetful patrons, Van Aken said an upcoming TabbedOut version would include a global positioning system-based feature that would remind patrons to close out when they get farther than a certain distance from the point-of-sale terminal.

Orr expects to target iPhone users 21 to 35 years old and business travelers who want to track expenses electronically. Also, he expects to attract as customers high-volume restaurants and bars that will subsidize user fees to generate additional business.

A recent survey conducted by Dallas-based SWACHA found that Texans are slow adopters when it comes to completing transactions on cell phones. Only 7 percent use a mobile-banking feature on their cell phones, and that’s mostly for verifying account balances.

ATX’s executives have combined their experience in security software and online payments to create TabbedOut.

Orr was an early employee of WholeSecurity Inc., an Austin-based software firm acquired by Symantec Corp. in 2005. ATX chief technology officer David Lemley was previously vice president of technology and chief architect at Austin-based Mpower Labs Inc., and co-founder Jeff Kalikstein previously co-founded Colorado-based MapMyFitness Inc.

ATX is seeking an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a syndicate of angel investors, Orr said.

TabbedOut isn’t available to everyone because smartphones are still used by a minority of consumers, said Nick Holland, a senior analyst specializing in mobile payments for the Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based research firm.

He’s also concerned that TabbedOut would be too easy to manipulate when tabs are closed and provide an opportunity for theft. But the application’s goal is still a good one, Holland said.

“It could solve and simplify restaurant and bar procedures,” he said. “Conceptually, it’s not a bad idea.”

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Christopher Calnan writes for the Austin Business Journal.