Sharing an Invoice with Someone in Your Home

If you split costs with someone else in your home, such as a roommate, co-owner, or another tenant, you can send them part of an invoice directly through the portal instead of collecting money yourself and paying it as one lump sum. This article explains how sharing works, who you can share with, what each of you sees, what happens when money lands on the invoice, and the emails you will get along the way.

Your Billing tab, with an invoice open and the Forward Invoice action available.

How to share an invoice

1. Open the invoice you want to split from your Billing tab.
2. Select Forward Invoice.
3. Pick a person from the list. This is a list of people already associated with your home, not a text box, so you cannot type in an outside email address.
4. Use the slider to set how much of the invoice they should cover, shown as a percentage and as a live dollar amount ("Their share: $X.XX"). It defaults to 50%. The slider will not go above what is still unclaimed on this invoice, so if you have already forwarded 60% to somebody else, the most you can send now is 40%.
5. Optionally add a short note, for example a reason for the split or a reminder.
6. Select Send.

The Forward Invoice form. The slider stops at what is genuinely still unclaimed.

Who shows up in the recipient list

You can only share with people connected to the same home (your unit) as the invoice, and you cannot share with yourself. Who you actually see on that list can vary depending on your own role on the home:

• If you are a tenant, you will only see other tenants on the same home.
• If you are an owner or another non-tenant occupant, you will see everyone associated with the home.

This is intentional. Your community's terms for these roles may differ (owner, tenant, occupant, resident, and so on), but the idea is the same: sharing stays within the people who live in or are responsible for your home.

Anyone who has already declined this particular invoice is shown as unavailable. That is permanent for that invoice, and it applies only to that invoice: they can still be sent a different one.

If the person you want to share with does not appear in the list at all, they may not be added to your home's records yet. Reach out to hello@myurbi.co and we can help.

How the other person pays their share

Once you send a share, the recipient gets a notification (see below) with a link into the portal. From their Shared Invoices area, they can review what was shared, accept or decline it, and if they accept, pay their portion using the payment methods available on their account.

The amount they are asked for is always what is genuinely still owed on their portion. If some of it has already been covered, by their own earlier partial payment or by a payment somebody else made on the invoice, that money is subtracted before they are asked for anything.

What happens when money lands on the invoice

A payment can arrive on the invoice as a whole, rather than on one person's portion. That happens when you pay the invoice yourself, when automatic payments run, or when your property manager records a payment they received.

When that happens, the payment is shared out across everybody who still owes something on the invoice, in proportion to what each of you still owes at that moment. It is not split by the original percentages, because those describe what was agreed at the start, not what is still outstanding.

• If the payment covers somebody's portion completely, their portion closes as Settled and they are told that somebody else covered it. It is not recorded as a payment by them, because they did not make one.
• If it covers only part of somebody's portion, their portion stays open at the smaller amount.
• A payment made against one specific portion stays with that portion. It does not reduce anybody else's.

What the recipient sees once somebody else's payment has covered their portion.

If the invoice amount changes

Sometimes an invoice is corrected after shares have already gone out. When that happens, portions that nobody has paid anything towards are recalculated from the percentage they were agreed at, so a 50% share of a corrected $200 invoice becomes $100. Portions that already have money on them are left exactly as they are.

Anyone whose portion went up is sent one notice telling them the amount changed. Nobody is quietly asked for more than they agreed to without being told.

Statuses you can both see

Both you and the person you shared with can track the share's progress. Here is what each status means:

You will find your outgoing shares grouped separately from shares sent to you, and older, finished shares (Paid, Settled, Declined, Expired) move into a history view so your active list stays easy to read.

Emails you will receive

• If you share an invoice with someone: you will get an email update whenever their status changes, for example when they view it, decline it, make a partial payment, or pay in full.
• If someone shares an invoice with you: you will get an email letting you know an invoice has been shared with you, including any note they added and a link to open the portal and respond.
• If somebody else's payment covers your portion: you will get an email and a push notification saying so, so you do not pay it a second time.
• If the invoice is corrected and your unpaid portion goes up: you will get one notice telling you the new amount.

What this means for you

• Sharing does not require anyone's email address; you pick from people already tied to your home.
• What you can see in the recipient list depends on your role, so if you are a tenant, you may see fewer names than an owner would.
• Declining a share is a normal, visible outcome, not an error; the sender is notified either way, and that invoice will not come back to you.
• Money paid on the invoice as a whole reaches everybody who still owes something on it, so nobody has to pay twice and then sort it out afterwards.
• The invoice's overall status (in your Billing tab) and an individual share's status (in Shared Invoices) are related but tracked separately.

FAQ

Q: Can I share an invoice with someone outside my home? A: No. You can only choose from people already associated with the same home as the invoice.

Q: What happens if the other person declines? A: You will be notified by email, and the share will show as Declined. You would still need to cover that portion yourself or share it with someone else. The percentage they turned down goes back into what you have left to forward.

Q: Can I send the invoice to them again after they decline? A: No. A decline is permanent for that invoice, so nobody can be sent the same invoice over and over after refusing it. Other invoices are unaffected.

Q: Can I cancel a share after I send it? A: There is no cancel option in the Shared Invoices tab once a share is sent. A share that has money on it, whether the recipient paid it or somebody else covered it, cannot be removed at all, because removing it would erase the record that the person was released. If you need help with a share, contact hello@myurbi.co.

Q: Does paying my share pay the whole invoice? A: No. Paying your share only covers the portion assigned to you. The invoice as a whole is only fully paid once all shares (and any remaining balance) are covered.

Q: I paid the whole invoice myself. Do the people I shared with still owe me? A: Not through URBI. Their portions close as Settled and they are told that somebody else covered them. Anything you want back from them is between you and them.

Q: My payment was refused with a message saying the amount owed has changed. What happened? A: Somebody else paid part or all of it while you were on the payment screen. Rather than take money that is no longer owed, the payment is refused. Reload the invoice and pay the new, smaller amount.

Q: Why can't I see everyone on my home in the recipient list? A: Your role affects who you see. Tenants see only other tenants on the same home; owners and other non-tenant occupants see everyone. Anyone who declined this specific invoice is also shown as unavailable.

Q: What does "Expired" mean? A: The share was not accepted or declined in time and is no longer available to act on. Unlike a decline, an expiry is not permanent, so the same invoice can be sent again. Contact hello@myurbi.co if you believe this happened in error.

Questions about sharing an invoice? Contact hello@myurbi.co.