What this is
This pure scripting mod ("pure" as in "there's no specific object that comes with this mod") handles accounts for your sims. The emphasis is on loans. Most interactions are available on computers under "Accounting Manager" right now. The interface is a bit messy here and there. I plan on adjusting it in the future to the way bills are handled - as in putting cheques into the mailbox.

Additional features for selectable sims
- menu on lots to transfer money
- working overtime (three hours at a time) at regular wage
- working shifts at part-time rabbitholes (three hours at a time) for 30§ per hour
- menu on mailboxes of unoccupied lots to move in homeless households (optionally with loans).
- Pay residents to upgrade your stuff. The related "Buy Upgrade" menu is available in the object's pie menu. Cost is 250§ per hour. I'm planning to expand this to things like gardening etc.

- There's a backup feature available in the pie menu of stuffed animals. It will backup all accounts in the name string of the stuffed animal and disable all interactions on it. To recover the backup, use the interface on computers. Use the backup option before removing or updating the mod.

Passive features
- child support (default off)
- NPCs who fall behind in paying their installments will work overtime (always on)
- NPCs who have the handiness skill will try to autonomously upgrade their stuff (always on - that's actually a tool to make sims with sufficient skills available to upgrade your stuff)
- households living in houses which can't support them will move and even take on a (sensible) loan to do so (always on)

What needs to be tested
There's actually nothing in there, that I haven't tested myself. The basic account functionality including inheritance of accounts etc. should work flawlessly. So just use it and look out for any glitches, bugs and weirdnessessesthingensies. Use the "Show all accounts" interaction on the computer to look how the NPCs handle their stuff.

Known Issues and Non-Issues
- The loans have interest and everything but don't actually work like realworld loans. That's not due to the fact that I don't understand realworld loans or that I was incapable to implement them.
- There are some debugging notifications and interactions (like deplete "household funds") in there, that aren't actually meant for people who just want to use this mod. They are handy for test players though and will stay until this thing - if ever - reaches official release status.
- There is no way to deactivate the "always on" features right now. If you use this mod at this stage, you are supposed to test it. BTW: I made the stuff regarding NPCs as non-intrusive as possible. If an NPC does as much as picking his nose, he will be left alone.
- Work overtime doesn't always make sense, e.g. for the lvl10 Rockstar career.
- It might take some time to find an available upgrader for the good stuff (e.g. unbreakable). That is by design.
- The "Household Mangler" doesn't use the hare-brained EAxian "CanSupportWhatever" method, which ignores cribs and regards a bed(slot) as necessary for toddlers and babies. If the StoryMode you use, uses the mentioned method to find fitting homes (AwesomeMod doesn't), it will almost definitely dance the household shuffle with this mod.

Compability
This mod is only compatible with game version 1.12/2.7/3.3/4.0.

Disclaimer
- Might lead to a serious case of squished brain in case of improper usage.
- I'm willing to hear requests that fit into the scope of this mod.

Updates
2010/07/04 - HandoutChoker added

It would be cool if a created family received a loan at the beginning before they moved into a house, and once purchased, the rest was given back to the bank, except for a small amount. The only time my sims really need a loan is at the very beginning or when a child moves out on their own.

I haven't tested this yet (I'm not at home) but judging by the looks of it this is amazing!

The only things to make this mod complete would be:

A: A rabbithole (bank, or maybe just use govt. building) and a new career (banking) to go with it.

OR

B: an ATM that can be put on community lots.

This looks great though! Thanks Buzzler, you really know your C#!

Ok, I've added the HandoutChoker. It will give any new household a loan in the amount of their handout. That is unless the household is homeless in which case it will deduct the handout from its FamilyFunds. For NPCs the loans will be set to "fast refund" which means, that everyday the household's FamilyFunds (minus what they need to pay their bills) will be used to refund as much as possible. For your active household you can easily refund money additional to the rates manually.

The HandoutChoker is on by default, and right now the setting can only be changed by opening the package in S3PE and changing the XML in it. I will add a cheat to change the setting next.

For obvious reasons only the basic functionality is tested right now. I don't expect any problems in the long-term, but I have yet to see how it handles households generated by StoryProgression.

BTW: The HandoutChoker is alarm-based and gets active every 5 minutes of game time. Therefore there's a chance that it misses the creation of a household, i.e. if you leave the game less than 5 minutes after a household has been created.

Nice idea, but I'm no mesher and I don't make careers either.

The best-suited existing Rabbithole to add bank interactions is the BusinessAndJournalismRabbitHole, methinks.

Nice idea, too, but not only am I not a mesher, I don't mess with animations either.

This probably goes way beyond the scope of this mod alone, but I think a 'limited global economy' mode would be a fun experiment. What I mean by this, is that when you start a new game, the economy has a set amount of funds that can be distributed. The world bank could of course earn interest on funds held, and revenue from the loans. A portion of each sim's paycheck (or more likely a portion of the bills) goes to the world fund. Then for each sim enrolled in school you deduct from the world fund, and certain jobs (Firefighter, etc) get paid from world funds.

@Rez Delnava: Actually, I've had the same idea for some time now. I have no specific plans yet, though. Something like that needs to be thouroughly planned out before beginning to code it. And lately there are always so many other things on the list. Like the changes to the careers I'm doing now. And the final interactions instead of the makeshift computer interactions. And the interactions to place standing orders (The complete standing order code is already there, it's just not getting used. There's even a finished ShowStandingOrders interaction there, which just doesn't show up on the computer since you can't have any standing orders...)

About the ATM mesh, one has been made for Sims 2 http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=151698. Perhaps if you asked he/she would let you use their mesh? As for animations, possibly the doorbell ring animation? Would be a little short for a real life ATM but hey, this is the Sims!

And adding the options to the BusinessAndJournalismRabbitHole wouldn't be very difficult would it? Even without a career it would still be pretty good.

Off-topic:
Buzzler, where did you learn to code? I have attempted several very minor projects for the Sims although my coding skills are far too inadequate to get past adding the resources.

Yes, maybe I will look into it later when I can't think of any more shinies to add. That might take some time. And to be honest, it doesn't really have priority.

It wouldn't. I'm probably going to deal with it once I got my changes to the career system up and running and made sure that my chokings of stupid story actions are working.

I basically taught myself. It began way back with BASIC on the C64. Later there was this teacher in school who didn't really teach me that much, but showed me stuff I wanted to be able to do myself. Which is actually just the right thing for me.

Regarding scripting for TS3 there are actually two things to consider:
1. You need to have some coding skills (Duh!). I don't know if learning to code has become less difficult (better compilers, the intarwebz) or more difficult (more powerful languages, OOP). For learning C# there's a pretty good and detailed tutorial on msdn. Well, I think it's good. I only skipped through the part for beginners.
2. Getting to know the TS3 code base. That can be frustrating sometimes. It still happens to me that I spend considerable time to "code around" some ostensible limitations and later stumble over some part of the game code that makes all my code obsolete. In the beginning it's probably best to look at other people's code (feel free to look at mine and use whatever you find useful) to see what they did and how they did it. I strongly advise against trying to make sense of massive mods like twallan's SuperComputer or StoryProgression; to a beginner things like that are just as hard to comprehend as the game code itself. Look at little mods like most of the stuff on my 4shared account or the Carpool Disabler here on MTS. And feel free to open "How can I..." threads here. I'm not planning to leave anytime soon (well, not for good) and I will always try to answer scripting questions.

Is this one compatible with 4.2 ? Just asking cause it sounds really, really good and I'd love to test it out. Not sure if you're even still working on it, though.

It is compatible with 4.2. I'm not working on it right now, and due to the lack of response, I'm not planning on releasing it anymore.

I don't know why you haven't gotten more interest than this...as I am EXTREMELY interested in this mod. Even if you can do just a simple object that you can add money to or take out like a small box or a safe or even use the cash register from the cosign store with the same interaction. I've been looking for a bank type mod FOREVER and since I have no coding skills I can't make one myself..but I really like this idea, and you should definately do it. A bank mod was popular in the sims 2, I don't see why if released it won't be just as popular for sims 3. :]

Dose this conflict with NRAAS story progression? This sounds great and id love to have it, but i dont want to put it in my game and have everything blowup lmao. I do hope you continue your plans for this... Ive had the idea for the LONGEST time of hiring the repairman to upgrade things for you but i cant code lol.

I don't see a way how they could conflict.

really great mod...this game need some realistic stuff like, even to make it more challenging...i think you should keep on working on it

This Is AWESOME! It should DEF be relaeased!

D: you should release it. or ill cry. just sayin.

You should release it and see if it gets accepted! I will be your very first downloader!

no you wont. i will. ill download it 100 times. i love it that much.

This mod would definitely generate interest if it was given more exposure, I doubt many people even look in this subforum. It has some great ideas incorporated, personal loans, banking, working shifts etc, loads of extra functionality that improves gameplay.

I think the lack of interest is not because it is not interesting, but because hardly anybody knows of its existence.

I LOVE this mod! And just for other people out there, it definitely works with ALL the nraas downloads (storyprogression, mastercontroller, woohooer etc) without any glitches so far. I'm also running 4.3 and no glitches there yet either.

Question though: can the active household take out loans? I can't quite figure that part out....

Little wonder. This is a scripting mod. Scripting mods don't conflict.

Households can't take out loans with this mod, sims can. While the sim in question is active, just click on a computer and choose "Accounting"->"My Account" (IIRC).

is this compatible with late night yet?

I decided to take the risk and use the mod with Late Night. So far nothing exploded

No. I have a compatible version for personal use. Public release for this mod is still on hiatus.

You do know that you are completely on your own with that, right? The version of this mod that was attached to the first post is now by all means outdated and unsupported. The least thing that will happen, is that the pie menu will be completely messed up.

This would be an interesting mod to have in the game. Hopefully one day it'll be release and compatible with whatever the latest EP is at that time.