How to Use Online Bill Pay?

Answer 1

As an added bonus when you sign up for an online banking account, most banks will throw in a feature called online bill paying. The online bill paying feature allows you to pay your bills right over the internet, using your online bank account. You can schedule your bills to be paid automatically, or go in and manually offer payments. Online bill paying is easy to use and can really help keep your bills in order.

• Step One: Setup. You’ll need to configure your bank account to accept your online bill pay before you can start sending out payments. You’ll have to let your bank know exactly what bills you want to pay and how you want to pay them. Many times, if a company doesn’t accept electronic payments, your online bank will write a check themselves and send it to the company on your behalf.

• Step Two: Check the other end. It’s always a good idea to check with the companies you’re trying to pay to see if they accept online bill pay. Even if they don’t, your bank will likely make accommodations, but your life is going to be easier if you take the time to check with them and make sure. This way, you’ll know exactly who you can pay right away and who you’ll have to check with your bank to get approval for.

• Step Three: Start making payments. Once you have all of your bills worked out and you know which ones you can pay, all you need to do is start making the payments. Using online bill pay is extremely easy and user friendly. All you have to do is select the bill you want to pay, type in the amount and select the account the money is coming out of. After that, click submit, and your bill is paid.

• Step Four: To automate or not to automate. Another handy feature that online bill paying provides is the ability to automate your bill paying. If you have bills that you pay every month, you can set your online bill pay to automatically deduct the amount of those bills from your account and send you an email to let you know it happened. This can be both good and bad, because it will help you pay your bills on time, but sometimes you can forget that money is coming out of your account. So, use auto pay wisely and to your advantage.

Online bill paying is a great feature provided by your online banking account. Through online bill paying, you don’t have to worry about getting checks in the mail on time, because your payments will be processed electronically each month.

Answer 2

In decades past, one of the most tedious tasks that needed to be completed each month would be paying bills. Back then, the average person would need to spend hours each month organizing their bills, balancing their checkbook, filling out checks, and mailing the bill. Now, with the advancement of the internet, online bill pay has reduced the amount of time paying bills down to just a few minutes each month. While online bill pay is very convenient, following a few tips on how to do it properly is quite important.

The first tip in how to properly use online bill pay is to ensure that you set up your accounts properly. Some companies that are used to receiving online bill payment, such as your utility company, will often allow you to upload the payment instructions directly into your bill pay. Other payees, such as your landlord or auto insurance provider, may not have this system and will require you to manually upload their information. To ensure that the bills are sent to the right payee on time, double check that you inputted the address, payee name, dollar amount, and any account number correctly.

The second tip in how to properly use online bill pay is to pay your bills on time. Just because you spend far less time paying your bills, it doesn't mean that it takes any less time for the payee to receive them. Some payees will receive your payment via an electronic wire, and in as little as 48 hours, while others will receive a paper check that could take five days. Be sure you understand how long each payment will take to be received and take that lag time into consideration when deciding when you should send out the payment.

The third tip in how to properly use online bill pay is to balance your checkbook. Many people feel that online bill pay, and the overall online checking system, will handle the balancing for them. While the online system will track your income and expenses, mistakes still take place and you could accidentally be charged numerous times for the same expense. Because of this risk, it is important that you keep track of your account balance on your own and ensure that the balance you have calculated matches up with what your online bank statement is saying.