ting-bill-split

README

ting-bill-split / tingbill

Split your Ting bills based on usage for each device. Generates both PDF and CSV reports by default.

Summary

Ting provides cellular service in the United States using Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon networks - Wikipedia

Many families put all their lines on the same plan to share savings, but Ting's billing system doesn't provide guidance on how to proportionately split monthly bills based on each line's usage. The basic solution is to split the monthly total cost evenly by number of lines. Unfortunately, this would mean one line that streams videos all the time might negate the savings of frugal data usage by others on the plan.

With tingbill, the plan owner can use the Ting-provided *.csv each month to split the bill more intelligently. Shared costs are split evenly between all lines, and the usage-based costs are split proportionately.

Requirements

This guide assumes:

• You can view the "Monthly bill" .pdf for a given billing month from Ting's "Billing history" page
• You can download .csv files for minutes, messages, megabytes, available by clicking on the "Monthly bill" link for the month, then the download arrow under the "CSV" column.
• You have sufficient permissions on your computer required to install and run Go programs (you probably do!)

Installing

In the future, I might supply pre-compiled binaries so that you don't need to install Go.

First Installation

1. Install Go for your operating system
2. In a terminal, type

   go get github.com/hitjim/ting-bill-split/cmd/tingbill
   

Installing Updates

In a terminal, type

go get -u github.com/hitjim/ting-bill-split/cmd/tingbill

Usage

Getting Help

From your terminal...

tingbill help

This prints a usage guide for working with a directory containing the required files for a single month's bill.

Working With Bill Directories

The default method for splitting bills is to work with directories in "batch mode".

1. In your terminal, navigate to the directory in which you wish to create and save your bill data. For example:

   cd ~/ting-bills
   

2. Create a new directory, preferably with a name.

   tingbill new 2019-09-ting
   

   This will create a new directory. Inside will be a bill.toml file where you can fill in the required information about your monthly bill.
3. Update the info in bill.toml to reflect the respective info for plan and that month's billing.
   • NOTE - If you have a previous month's bill.toml, you can usually use a copy to replace the new one, and update info as needed.
4. Download and move all the .csv files for the month into this directory.
5. Run tingbill, here are some examples:
   • From the same directory as when tingbill new <dir> was run, if <dir> is 2019-09-ting:

     tingbill dir 2019-09-ting
     

   • From anywhere:

     tingbill dir <full path to dir>
     

     for example...

     tingbill dir ~/2019-09-ting
     

     tingbill dir /home/yourusername/ting-bills/2019-09-ting
     

   • From inside the directory containing your .csv files and bill.toml

     tingbill dir .
     

6. Review the resulting .pdf and .csv report files in the bill split directory you chose.
7. For each following month's bill, you can either:
   • Start again at step #2
   • Make a new directory manually, copy the previous month's bill.toml into it, start at step #3

Breakdown of bill.toml Info

• description - Ideally this is a unique string of characters, I recommend including the billing date. This description is used as part of the resulting .pdf and .csv report files after calculating the bill split.
• deviceIds - Each string is a unique phone number on the Ting plan.
  • NOTE: do NOT use dashes. Example: "1112223333", not "111-222-3333".
• shortStrawId - In the unlikely event a cost can't be split evenly between lines, this is the line that will absorb that cost. It's usually $0.01, and I usually use the plan owner's number (probably you!). This is due to math, our inability to split pennies in half, and partially a personal judgement call based on complexity and ROI :)
• The rest of the values are US Dollar amounts and use a decimal format to suit. Example: 48.00, not 48 or "48.00".
  • total - This is the final cost of the month's bill.
  • devices - This is the shared cost based on how many lines or devices are on the plan, and is provided in the Ting bill.
  • minutes, messages, megabytes, extraMinutes etc... - These reflect the usage cost breakdowns, and are provided in the Ting bill for each type.
  • fees - This is the total of all the "Taxes and regulatory fees" Ting is required to collect, and is provided in the Ting bill. This is a shared cost, and tingbill doesn't use the individual costs.

Extra Program Usage Info

• You can rename the .csv files you get from Ting. As long as "messages", "minutes", and "megabytes" is part of the filename for the respective files, "batch mode" will still work.
• You can move the lines in the bill.toml file, perhaps grouping in a way you prefer. But each line is required in the format provided in the original file.
• Include every number listed by Ting for that month's charges. Do so even if a line is suspended for the entire month, or deactivated for part of it. This line will still incur charges despite reduced or zero usage, and thus affects how the shared costs are split per line.