[tonikami]

We wait for everyone to pay their portion before making the payments to the merchant/landlord. I hadn't heard about the City of Berkeley doing that, thanks for sharing!

[onion2k]

We wait for everyone to pay their portion before making the payments to the merchant/landlord.

That seems very high risk. Back when I lived in shared houses I'd prefer to pay and then be reimbursed by whoever missed their share than have the rent paid late. Could users set up a discretionary fund that's used to cover missed payments from their friends?

[tonikami]

That's a great idea! We could maybe set up an optional deposit in the app to be used if someone forgets to pay their share. To deal with this in the app at the moment, we have a tonne of useful notifications reminding everyone to pay their share and an autopay option. But I definitely think your suggestion will come in handy as we scale.

[jedberg]

Or allow me to pay extra to cover someone else and then get refunded or get a credit towards my next bill or something. So I get a notification the day before rent is due telling me someone didn't pay yet, and then I can just pay for them so the bill isn't late.

Or you can get into the credit business and just pay the bill and charge that person a fee or interest. :)

[mbesto]

> Or you can get into the credit business and just pay the bill and charge that person a fee or interest.

This. I'm not in the category of sharing bills with roommates anymore, but do remember it well and it was a pain.

I'd rather deal with a tech company that can provide better customer service and float for me than a utility bill that loses my info or doesn't do auto-pay correctly.

So if your value proposition is:

- never miss a bill again (Ysplit pays up front for it)[0]

- never deal with customer service for a utility again

Then I think people would pay for that convenience.

[0] - you could do the reverse and have people pay up front and give a discount, then use that float for finances. See -> Venmo.