When the bills are all in one person's name

Somebody's name has to be on the electricity account, and whoever it is carries three things the others do not: the money leaves their account first, their credit record is attached to it, and every price rise and every service problem is theirs to deal with. Splitting the bill evenly does not split any of that.

The float is the invisible part

The account holder is lending the household money every month between the bill leaving and the reimbursements arriving. On one bill it is nothing. Across power, water, internet and a television service it can be several hundred dollars permanently out of one person's account.

The fix is not repayment, it is timing: the household transfers before the direct debits go out rather than after. That single change removes almost all of it.

Spread the accounts, or rotate them

Most households find it easier to put different bills in different names than to compensate one person for holding all of them. Power with one, internet with another, water with a third. Nobody is the bank, and the admin is shared by construction rather than by goodwill.

Where that is not possible — some providers will not switch mid-contract — rotating at renewal achieves the same thing more slowly.

Say out loud that it is a job

Chasing four people every month is work, and it is work that is invisible to everybody except the person doing it. Households where that is acknowledged tend to hand the account holder something in return: they skip a turn on something equally tedious, or they are simply thanked for it, out loud, occasionally.