Mod Summary

This add-on will revamp EA’s billing system by splitting out Water & Sewer, Electricity, Trash, Cable, Internet, Cellphone and Property Taxes. Each bill creates an adverse effect if not paid. This addition will also provide some additional support for low-income families or families that have seen a change in circumstances. 

Mod Guide: 

https://www.simrealist.com/bills-guide

Summary of Changes

We added:

• Child Support Application: Child Support requires the Custodial Parent to apply for Child Support rather than it by automatic.
• Child Support and Alimony Direct Deposit Support: Support for the new SNB Direct Deposit System is available. Please use the version found here: https://simrealist.itch.io/snbank
• Auto-Pay Adjustments: auto-payment of bills shouldn't pay twice the amount billed. 

GOVERNMENT BENEFITS PORTAL

To access Bills' new Government Benefits and Services, you must enter through the Government Benefits Portal within the Bills App and choose which Benefit or Service you would like for your Sim. If they qualify, the option will be available to set up Direct Deposit for Child Support and Alimony for the Receiving Household, request Alimony or Wel-Fund, or stop Child Support and Alimony payments.

CHILD SUPPORT

In the event that a Parent should leave their children with another in another Household, whether married or not, they may send Child Support if an application is approved via the Receiving/Custodial Parent. This is with the understanding that when that parent isn't living in that household, they should send Support to the Custodial Parent since their income is now being excluded from assisting in the care of their Offspring. 

PAYING CHILD SUPPORT

Child Support is calculated with a fixed price of §550 + 5% of the non-Custodial Parent's Household and SNB Accounts + 25% of any Career Pay. This setup ensures that the paying parent isn't skimping out on sending support in any shape or form. All of these defaulted values are customizable in the Bills Settings except for the Household Wealth.

When a Bill is due, it will break down how much is paid for each child so that you can pay for each individually or altogether if there is more than one. Your Sim is required to pay Child Support first before paying for household services. If you can't pay your Sim's Child Support, you can always request to Stop payments if they qualify. If not, they will become past due on their home services, and the resulting interest, service cut-off, and potential death can occur as normal.

If you set your Bills to Autopay, Child Support, payments will automatically payout like your Sim's other bills.

**CHILD SUPPORT ISN'T AUTOMATIC AS OF VERSION 0.8.0. RECEIVING PARENT MUST "APPLY" BEFORE PAYMENT CAN BE DUE.**

RECEIVING CHILD SUPPORT

If the Household you are playing is on the receiving end, you can have a percentage of Child Support go to each SNB account and then to the Household account with anything leftover. The default is all going to the Household account. This payment system is outside the Bill paying side, so you will still need to pay for your Sim's Household Services.

In the event that the non-Custodial Parent cannot pay their Child Support Bill and they are outside of the Active Household, Child Support will automatically stop for them. This can occur if you don't regularly play the Paying Household since the game does not continue to build their income when inactive.

**PAYMENTS VIA DIRECT DEPOSIT WILL APPLY BASED ON THE ACTIVE SIM. IF YOU ARE ON THE CHILD OR SOMEONE WHO ISN'T SETUP FOR ALIMONY OR CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS, PAYMENT WILL GO TO THE HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNT**

ALIMONY

Unlike Child Support, Alimony isn't automatic. The Receiving Sim must first "apply" for it as soon as a Divorce takes place, meaning it should be done before the Divorce moodlet expires. You will not see a request from the Divorced Inactive Sim (Sim living outside of the Active Household), so if you want your Sim to pay for Alimony, you must go to the other Household to set that up and create a Direct Deposit for it if desired.

PAYING ALIMONY

Similarly to Child Support, Alimony is calculated with a fixed price of §1,200 + 5% of the Paying Sim's Household Wealth + 25% of the Paying Sim's Career Pay. Again, this setup makes sure the Paying Sim isn't hoarding money. The whole point of this option during a Divorce settlement is to make sure the Sim, whose financial situation has drastically changed, is taken care of until they can get a job or change their new reality.

When this bill becomes due, you have to pay this bill before attempting to pay your Sim's other Household Services. You could potentially have multiple Alimony payments at once as well, but normally you would have the one ex-Spouse to pay to since payments stop when they re-marry or after four weeks of payments.

If you set your Bills to Autopay, Alimony payments will automatically pay out like your Sim's other bills.

RECEIVING ALIMONY

As mentioned previously, your Sim has a narrow window of opportunity to request Alimony. They must go into the Government Benefits Portal and "Apply." Once done, they will receive a direct deposit at their next billing cycle based on how they set up this agreement in the Portal. Again, these payments stop when a Sim marries another or four billing cycles have passed.

In the event that the Paying Ex-Spouse cannot pay their Alimony Bill and they are outside of the Active Household, Alimony will automatically stop for them.

**PAYMENTS VIA DIRECT DEPOSIT WILL APPLY BASED ON THE ACTIVE SIM. IF YOU ARE ON THE CHILD OR SOMEONE WHO ISN'T SET UP FOR ALIMONY OR CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS, PAYMENT WILL GO TO THE HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNT**

WEL-FUND 4 FAMILIES

If you are playing a single-parent household that isn't receiving Child Support, Wel-Fund 4 Families benefit is now available for those that are struggling. This Government benefit deposits §350 (fixed and not customizable) for each Sim younger than a Young Adult in Household to the Household Account for each billing cycle. When those children age up to a Young Adult and go to college, they will get an additional benefit of §500 in Government Grant money for each semester enrolled. 

To qualify, your household must have:

• A residential lot valued less than §40,000 or rent less than §800
• Cannot own a business
• Unemployed, part-time, or full-time employment making less than §1,050/week.
• Unmarried
• Does not receive Child Support

OTHER ENHANCEMENTS

HOME SERVICES PACKAGES

Moving your Sim into a new home or updating your Bills and having to re-set what services they need? With this update, you can add or activate services with one click in our new services set-up window. You can start off with a Basic Welcome Home Package package with the bare essentials or upgrade to everything except for Premium with the Full Welcome Home Package. If you want all services, you can also get that with one touch by choosing the Premium Welcome Package. If you want to pick and choose or fully customize what your Sim needs, that option is still there with Customize Home Services.

BILL PAY UPDATES

If you have R|E 0.2.0 or newer installed, you'll be able to receive MULTIPLE tax bills that include all property owned by the Household. However, you WILL NOT receive the bills for utilities on all properties, ONLY the Main Residential lot. You can still set up home services on multiple properties; you just only pay for services on the main lot. 

Version 0.8.0 and SNB 3.1.0 allows your Sim to choose one of the new SNB accounts attached to the active Sim for additional Bill Pay options. If you enable a specific account to be debited via a debit card instead of selecting an account here, it will pay from the debit card selected instead of the household. 

**IN THE EVENT YOUR SIM OWNS RENTAL PROPERTIES AND RENTS AN APARTMENT, THEY MAY PAY PROPERTY TAXES EACH WEEK INSTEAD OF EVERY 4 WEEKS.**

SETTINGS UPDATES

With all these additional features, we've added settings for each option so you can customize your Sim's financial experience. This includes Utility costs to make your Sim's bills higher or lower down to the percentage the Sim receives or pays for Alimony and Child Support. These settings are now global instead of household-based. So if you were to go to another household within that save, those settings would remain.

FAST INTERNET LOT TRAIT

When we added the Custom Internet Bill, it locked down the Fast Internet Lot trait so that a Simmer could not simply add this trait without paying for it. Since we haven't developed Bills as a Business option, we've liberated this lot trait for non-residential lots. 

FAQ

Do I need to activate this mod for it to work?

No. You are no longer able to opt into this. As soon as you load up a save, Bills will be enabled.

I have a suggestion for making this mod even more; where do I leave that suggestion?

Please post your suggestions in our Discord feedback channel - #snb (https://discord.gg/x6bFyNT)

Can I install this mod and only use it for certain families or saves?

No, this mod will automatically activate requiring Simmer input on starting up Home Services. 

Do I need to have SNB installed in order to use this addition?

No. The Bills Add-On was initially created as a stand-alone addition. 

What other features are you looking to add to the addition?

We have a few additions we plan on looking into, which are listed below. However, if there's great interest in this and Patron requests for certain features to be added we will look into adding more in the future. 

• Government Benefits: Social Security, Pension, and Retirement Accounts (SNB)
• Government and Public Administration (GPA)
  • Income Taxes
  • Moving Property Taxes under this system
  • Fire and Emergency Services Administration
  • Public Safety Administration 
  • Park and Recreation Administration
  • Realistic Executive, Judicial, and Legislative Government Branches
• Homeowner's Insurance and Natural Disasters (tenuous)

Conflicts/Issues/Notable Items Observed:

• DO NOT have any MCCC money settings in place when using this mod. It will cause errors. All of these settings (configured for the SimRealist experience) are now available in the Bills Setting option found on the phone or mailbox within EA's Show Bill Information option.
• Your Sim will still be able to use the toilet when they are not signed up for Water. They will just not be able to flush...
• If speakers are playing when the Electricity goes out, it will continue to play until turned off. This is an EA bug and not something we plan on fixing with this mod in case it is taken care of in a patch.
• If you miss a bill payment, interest will be added to that bill. You don't want to miss a bill.
• Long Lifespans will see Property Taxes occur more often since it is currently set to occur every four weeks.
• The new Residential Rental lots from the For Rent pack override the mod's Lot Settings on Fast Internet and Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle if not the Sim's primary home lot. 
• The taxes/bills from such a lot type come in as Misc at Billing for right now. 

Compatible With: 

Patch 04/16/2024 PC: 1.106.148.1030 / Mac: 1.106.148.1230

Credits

• Victor Andrade: SR Mod Developer 
• Nichole: SR Mod Producer
• roBurky & scripthoge (Mod The Sims) for assistance in the development of these additions
• Use of BraveSim's Smarter Trash Emptying custom tuning to overwrite the E882D22F!00000000!0000000000003430.Empty_Trash.InteractionTuning file. 
• TURBODRIVER and frankk: for The One Py To Fix Them All script to mass update our mods for Patch 12/05/2023 PC: 1.103.250.1020 / Mac: 1.103.250.1220
• Mod Page Wall Paper and Icons by Freepik from flaticon.com

Thanks to the SR Linguists Team

STRINGS INCLUDED:

• Dutch
• French
• Italian
• Korean
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese (PT)
• Russian

TOOLS USED:

• Sims4Studio
• Zerbu: Mod Constructor (V4)

Mod Support:

If you are experiencing this issue with this mod, please head over to our Discord server channel: #simrealist-mod-support (https://discord.gg/W8Erfqu).