All of my family members are adults. How can we have a family share account and pay for our own items? We don't want to have the "head of household" responsible for everyone's purchases.
iPhone 5s, iOS 8.0.2
This is wrong. While each member uses their own Apple ID to make the purchase, the bill goes to the organizer, and there appears to be no way for a member to choose whether to bill to the organizer or themselves.
IMHO, This lack of billing choice among adult members will severely limit widespread acceptance of Apple Family Sharing.
KiltedTim wrote:
ClydeMcK wrote:
This is wrong. While each member uses their own Apple ID to make the purchase, the bill goes to the organizer, and there appears to be no way for a member to choose whether to bill to the organizer or themselves.
IMHO, This lack of billing choice among adult members will severely limit widespread acceptance of Apple Family Sharing.
That's a completely inappropriate use of Family Sharing. That is NOT what it was intended for. The "owner" of the content, must control all of the devices it's distributed to.
What you're trying to do is find away around the fact that you can't share purchased apps.
Not at all. It's merely a reflection of Apple's stereotype of what "family" means. Typically a family has two adults, but may have more - what about grandparents? What about children over 18? Our preside says children can stay on parent's health insurance to age 26, right? I'm divorced, but my ex-wife and my single children are ages 31 and 28, and we all still interact with each other intensively but tend to keep our spending separate.
Even Apple says that when a child makes a purchase, the child retains ownership of that purchase, not the organizer.
All I'm suggesting is that when making purchases, adult members of an Apple "family" be presented with the option to bill their own Apple ID or the organizer's.
Actually, in Family Sharing all purchases are billed to the Family Organizer unless the family member initiating the Purchase has Gift Card or Store Credit balance in their accounts.
Not sure what happens when there is a Credit card assigned to a family member's account though.
CorinafromSBCUSD wrote:
That means gift cards are no good because they would all have to be loaded to the master account.
That is wrong. Family Sharing expressly bills the Gift Card Balance or Store Credit assigned to the person performing the purchase first, before billing the Family Organizer.
Family purchases and payments - Apple Support
After you set up your family, any time a family member initiates a new purchase it will be billed directly to your account unless that family member has gift or store credit. First, their store credit will be used to pay the partial or total bill. The remainder will bill to the family organizer's card. As the family organizer, any receipts generated by the transaction will be sent to you. Learn more about how iTunes Store purchases are billed.
Which means you can totally add Gift cards to a member account and use that balance to pay for purchases.
When you join family sharing, you are only sharing access to the apps, etc. that you purchase with the other people who have joined family sharing.
Each person's purchases remain with them; the other members are given access to them as if they had purchased them.
Michael, thank you for your reply. Let me rephrase the question: My son-in-law recently purchased some music. It was billed to me, but remains in his account. We get that. What we want to know is how each member can pay for their own content. In other words, we don't want to share the cost, just the content. Does that family member have to remove themselves from the family share account, make their purchase, then re-add themselves in order to avoid the "head of household" having to pay for their purchase? There should be a way that every adult member can pay for their own purchases, but share the content with the rest of the family. Thank you for your time.
ClydeMcK wrote:
This is wrong. While each member uses their own Apple ID to make the purchase, the bill goes to the organizer, and there appears to be no way for a member to choose whether to bill to the organizer or themselves.
IMHO, This lack of billing choice among adult members will severely limit widespread acceptance of Apple Family Sharing.
That's a completely inappropriate use of Family Sharing. That is NOT what it was intended for. The "owner" of the content, must control all of the devices it's distributed to.
What you're trying to do is find away around the fact that you can't share purchased apps.
ClydeMcK wrote:
Not at all. It's merely a reflection of Apple's stereotype of what "family" means.
Excuse me? You're accusing Apple of stereotyping? You don't pay much attention to the news do you?
The simple fact is, that's not how it works and that's not how it was intended to work.
No problem. I just said the lack of offering one simple option during purchase ("bill to: _my Apple ID _<OrganizerName>") will limit its adoption. And the more I think about it, the more I suspect it will become a major headache for Apple Support, as more and more families realize the can of worms it opens up, when permanent ownership of a purchase is assigned to the purchaser (even a child), while billing of said purchase is paid by someone else. Lawyers and courts and class action suits, oh my!
I agree this is a problem. I was very excited about Family Sharing until I ran across this problem. A family member and I shared an iTunes account when we first started because we shared a computer. Now, she has her own computer and wants her own account, but she still wants access to the books, music, and apps she paid for in the shared account. But, if she creates a new account and switches to Family Share, one of us will have to pay for everything. That means gift cards are no good because they would all have to be loaded to the master account.
My experience as well. My wife is the organizer but I redeemed a gift card to my Apple ID account, tried to buy an iPhone app through the App Store and it wouldn't complete the transaction without my wife entering her security code. I'm in the "Parent/Guardian" role and have sufficient credit in my account. Why is her step required?
That wasn't my experience today. I redeemed a $25 gift card to my "Parent" account (not Organizer) and tried to buy a $5 app. No good. It told me the Organizer had to enter the security code for [her] payment method. It's going to try to bill her on-file credit card. My redeeming the $25 card to my account was a total waste.
I'm with you. I have the same fundamental question and issue. ****, I have to ask my 18 year old to sign an HIPAA form to allow me to know why my insurance is charging me health bills if he needs stitches!
Again, you are right, especially when Family Sharing says ownership rides with the family member after the purchase, which today goes against the Family Owner's credit card.
Something went sideways when I configured the account. It appears that Apple is setting this up for a head of household, spouse and dependents rather than a parent and adult children. Why? I say this for several reasons.
1. The organizer pays for all transactions;
2. The system is set up to combine and share location of members as well as share calendar;
3. There is no common/typical reason for an adult child and their parent to share the parents paymemt method and calendar. Of course there are some reasons to share calendar for adult children working in a family business (plus others) however; there are apps more suited to business needs;
4. There really is no common reason an adult child needs to share and pass around a 99 cent app with parents;
5. Apple's advertising and examples are parents with younger children.
This all makes sense. I want to track my child's purchases, location, and allow use of a form of payment that is not appropriate for them to manage on their own.
What doesn't make sense is that the system adds children as adults. How do I change this for an 11 or 17 year old child without setting up a new account for them?
Some casual reading for you:
All of my family members are adults. How can we have a family share account and pay for our own items? We don't want to have the "head of household" responsible for everyone's purchases.
