Are You Taking Advantage of Online Billpay?

Online Bill-pay is a feature that is available at virtually every major and mid-size bank in the country. It is usually free to set up and it comes with a host of benefits to assist you in taking control of your finances. Paying your bills online is much more efficient than sending money via “snail mail”! A few of those benefits are listed here:

• Most vendors and financial institutions are already listed in your bank’s database, which helps you in several ways:
  • Helps you to avoid errors in entering the vendors information and address
  • Makes the setup process quick and easy
  • If your vendor is not listed in your bank’s database, you can add them for future use; which still helps you to save time when compared with manually writing a check every month
• No more late payment or processing fees (for making payments over the phone, or sending a check overnight)!
  • You can set up automatic payments for those recurring expenses (rent/mortgage, car note, cell phone, etc) weeks or months in the future
  • You can set up payments for non-recurring charges (annual/semi-annual insurance premiums, Auto Club renewal, etc), so they won’t pop up as a surprise when you get the renewal notice
• With most institutions, you can even use online bill-pay for vendors that do not take electronic payments!
  • The bank will just mail out a physical check in that case, but the money will be deducted from your available balance either when the payment is mailed out or on the “due date” that you specified
  • We use this feature to pay our rent, church offerings, charitable contributions and even when paying someone back for picking up the tab at lunch

No more waiting for a check to clear, or a vendor to withdraw a payment!!! You can have a better handle on your finances – of course if you balance your checkbook or use financial software this can be avoided as well (but that’s for another article)! Automating payments is something that even the rich take full advantage of…isn’t it time that you took your financial management to the next level?

Online Bill-pay is one of the first and easiest steps you can take to help get your (financial) house in order. It is free – and if your bank wants to charge you, it’s time to find a new bank – and it will actually save you money (from avoiding late payment and processing fees down to stamps, checks and envelopes). So, what are you waiting for?

If you are already using Bill-pay, please comment below and share different ways that you have used Bill-pay to take control of your finances.