Make Team Accounts Optional?

I was contracted to build a regional real estate listing app.

There are two general user types Realtor and normal User (person shopping for a new home)

I will require Accounts for Realators for billing and the like, but User/Shopper won't ever be billed and I feel that having the "Account Name" field and all the accoutrements that go with it is confusing/overkill

So, what do you all think the best way to handle having some User types belong to and account, and some not is?

Basically, how would you handle Users/Accounts in a classifieds  application where only people posting will be required to pay, and the likelihood of a shopper ever becoming a poster is next to nil?

Hey Armen!

I would treat the personal Accounts as Shoppers and non-personal accounts as Realtors.

I see a couple options you could do here. You could either have the user select the type of account they want on the sign up form (realtor or shopper) or you could have two separate sign up forms. You could have that set the personal flag on the Account during create to distinguish which they're signing up for.

I had a similar scenario where I wanted people to sign up as test "takers" (free, personal) and test "makers" (paid, impersonal). This may be a janky way of doing it, but here's how I did it in case anyone sees this in the future and may find it helpful. 

For background in my jumpstart config area, I have personal accounts allowed, and additional info for accounts checked as well

In routes.rb, I added this under the devise_for :users block:

  devise_scope :user do
    get "test_taker_sign_up" =>'users/registrations#new'
  end

 In my accounts_controller.rb, I added this piece above `elsif Jumpstart.config.register_with_account?`

    elsif params[:user] && request.referrer == test_taker_sign_up_url
      account.update_attribute(:personal, true)