Google’s Project Fi allows you to share your wireless plan with friends, family, and even strangers. While it is quite easy to set up and use, the hassle comes when it is time to pay the bill. Until now, at the end of every month, only the main account holder would receive a single bill.
When every user incurs different fees because of varying levels of data usage, it becomes a problem to figure out who has to pay how much and how to the main account holder. But, not anymore!
Google’s newest update for Project Fi now automatically calculates each group member’s bill amount and then provides them with different payment options that can happen directly through Project Fi.
This new feature, called ‘Group Repay’ allows group plan owners and members to set up monthly repayments as well as reminders. This option can be enabled from the billing section of your account.
The repay amount that is fixed can be a number of things– an individual’s total usage, a fixed amount, or only for data usage above an allotted 1GB budget.
Project Fi is presently integrated with Google Wallet to send and receive payments. Members can simply make payments from the Fi notification on their home screen. Further, plan owners can automatically cash out repayments to their debit cards or checking accounts. There is also the option to view the group repay history. This includes the different payment statuses for the present month.
Below, you can see how the update will show on your Android phone.
According to a survey done by Google, about 50% users are aged 18-34 years and have shared plans with their parents. About half of this number pays some amount of the bill every month. 42% of users share their Fi plans with spouses or significant others and another 5% shares it with friends or roommates.
This new update should largely help the audiences using Fi to better manage their tallies with each other and make it easier for them to share bills.
