SNB - Bills 0.4.0 (Pre-Release)

09/30/20 - Update (0.4.0.0-8.0):

• Removed notification and dialog wrapper function so that SNB Bills won't be wrongly blamed for missing strings and LEs on other mods.  

09/21/20 - Update (0.4.0.0-7.0):

•  For Child Support costs, the Household Wealth percentage is now divided amongst all children instead of added for each one. This should keep Child Support costs from skyrocketing when you have multiple children to pay for; 
• Introduced flexible menu row size on the SNB Bills App so that essential information won't be hidden behind a tooltip; 
• Fixed a spelling error on the Child Support Stop menu; 
• Fixed a bug where the Child Support Stop dialog would show the name of the same parent multiple times. 

09/14/20 - Update (0.4.0.0-6.0):

• Wel-Fund 4 Families menu option will now appear greyed out if you don't qualify for it, instead of not appearing at all; 
• Teens living without their parents can now apply for Wel-Fund 4 Families. 
• Teens that are considered the head of the household can now apply for Wel-Fund for them and their siblings. 

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. 

PUBLIC MOD GUIDE

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

To see the changes and updates from 0.4.0, continue reading this post.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES

We added:

• Government Benefits and Services (Child Support, Alimony, and Wel-Fund 4 Families)
• Home Services Welcome Packages
• Cost Settings for the ultimate form of customization of your Sim's financial experience. 

This update is all about Governmental Benefits & Services in relation to helping Families that need the help to make it through tough times or a change of circumstances. With the addition of higher or more bills, some families might need assistance to make it through.

GOVERNMENT BENEFITS PORTAL

In order to access Bills' new Government Benefits and Services, you will need to 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 must send Child Support. 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 set up makes sure 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 breakdown how much is paid for each child so that you can pay for each individually or altogether if there are more than one. Your Sim is required to pay Child Support first before paying for their household services. If you can't pay your Sim's Child Support, you can always a request to Stop to 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. 

RECEIVING CHILD SUPPORT

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

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. 

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 out. 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 will have to 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, who's financial situation has drastically changed, is taken care of until they can get a job or make a change that fits 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 just have the one ex-Spouse to pay to since payments stop when they re-marry or after 4 weeks of payments. 

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

RECEIVING ALIMONY

As mentioned previously, your Sim has a narrow window of opportunity to request Alimony. They will need to go into the Government Benefits Portal and "Apply." Once done, at their next billing cycle they will receive a direct deposit based on how they set up this agreement in the Portal. Again, these payments stop when a Sim marries another or 4 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.

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 employment, 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 have to re-set what services they need? Well 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 get that with one touch also 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.

SETTINGS UPDATES

With all these additional features, we've added in 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 will remain. 

FAST INTERNET LOT TRAIT

 When we added in the Custom Internet Bill, it locked down the Fast Internet Lot trait so that a Simmer could not simply add this trait without actually 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 on making this mod even more, where do I leave that suggestion?

Please post your suggestions while this mod is in Development, in our Discord channel - #patrons-forum (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. 

• Set up Home Services in Packages or All Services at once option
• Government Benefits
  • Food Stamps/EBT
  • 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 taken place more often since it is currently set to occur every 4 weeks.

Compatible With: 

Patch  09/03/20 PC: 1.66.139.1020 / Mac: 1.66.139.1220 

Credits

• Victor Andrade: SR Mod Developer 
• Nichole: SR Mod Producer
• roBurky & scripthoge (Mod The Sims) for assistance in the development of this additions
• Use of BraveSim's Smarter Trash Emptying custom tuning to overwrite the E882D22F!00000000!0000000000003430.Empty_Trash.InteractionTuning file. 
• Mod Page Wall Paper and Icons by Freepik from flaticon.com

TOOLS USED:

• Sims4Studio
• Zerbu: Mod Constructor (V4)

Download

SNB-Bills is currently only available for patrons. 

Download on itch or Download in the attachment below.

SNB-Bills will be publicly available for non-patrons on October 10th.

Mod Support:

If you are experiencing this issue with this mod, please head over to our Discord server channel: #patreon-mod-support (https://discord.gg/97hyxrM).