Estimated Bills: How Keel manages Gas, Electricity and Water (and More!) when the cost changes

For most recurring household expenses like rent or your internet plan, you know the exact cost down to the cent. But for usage-based utilities, like electricity, gas, and water, you often don't find out the actual cost until the bill arrives at the end of the quarter.

If you wait for that piece of mail to arrive, you're exposing yourself to bill shock.

Keel solves this timing problem by allowing you to Estimate your usage-based bills ahead of time, ensuring your cash flow stays consistent from day one. Here is exactly how it works.

Step 1: Lock in an Estimate

When setting up a usage-based bill in your Keel app, you don't need to wait for the official statement. You have the option to mark the bill as 'Estimated Bill' and input an estimated amount based on what you typically pay or your last bill from that provider.

Keel instantly takes that estimate and divides it across your upcoming pay cycles and updates your Smart Contribution to start collections to build up your Keel wallet for this bill.

Step 2: The Reminders

An estimate is just a starting point. As the bill's due date approaches, Keel actively ensures your balance matches reality and will notify you to update your estimated amount with the actual bill figure:

• The Reminder Runway: Keel will send you a prompt to confirm or update the bill total at 4 weeks, 3 weeks and 2 weeks before the due date.
• The Final Week Countdown: If the bill remains unconfirmed in the final week, Keel will gently notify you every single day leading up to the due date.
• If you don't confirm the amount, we will process the estimated figure to the biller.

Step 3: Recalculation

The moment you log into the app and input the confirmed amount into the app, all reminder notifications will stop. If your actual bill matches your estimate, you are completely set. If the real bill comes in slightly higher or lower than what you guessed, Keel will recalculate and update your remaining smart contributions before the payment date, adjusting your final contributions slightly to smoothly absorb the difference. If it is too close to the payment date, Keel will give you options to top up your wallet via PayID.