Paying Bills Online - Five Secrets to Paying Your Bills Effortlessly Online With No Mishaps

I have been paying bills online for about 5 years now and I experienced a few bumps on the way. In fact I make about 20 to 25 online payments per month - all automated so that I am spending like none of my down time paying my bills. What's more I write no more than 1 to 2 paper checks per month. It's all dialed in and I have a system to make sure that all of the bills are effortlessly and automatically being paid.

But it was not always smooth sailing when navigating the online bill pay waters. There were a few mess ups that took place but have since been corrected. But from these temporary setbacks I learned these important secrets to making sure that the right bills got paid and got paid on time.

I learned from these mishaps and have since added a five step process to make sure the bills are being paid on time. So here's the Five Secrets to Paying Your Bills Online:

1. Create a " Billpay Audit Chart" of all of your recurring monthly bills. You should set this up in a program like Excel or in a Word table. Even if you get your bills fully automated, you still need a centralized system to know how each of your bills are being paid. What should be on this list? Place your important bills that are paid automatically each month. Some examples of what should be on this list: mortgage payment or rent, car payment, cable TV bill, phone bill, gas bill, electric bill, water bill, credit card, and cell phone bill. Add a few columns to track average amount due, due date, and whether you have set this up on automatic payment.


2. Track the source and method of the automatic payment for each bill you have. What we mean here is that you need to keep track of whether the bill is paid through your online banking at your bank or is set up as a ACH debit from the creditor themself. ACH bill payment refers to the instance where you send a voided check to your utility provider for example and you ask them to deduct the monthly charges from your checking account. In other cases you will want to note that the monthly expense is being charged to your credit card. You can add a column in your Billpay Audit Chart to note the payment method for each of your bills.


3. Set up reminders of when important bills are paid. There's a lot of alerts in your online banking setup that can notify you by email or even text alerts (depending on what your bank offers) when a payment is made. Take full advantage of these alerts to keep track of your recurring payments that are going out each month.


4. Set up special alerts in your online banking as a safety net for your automated bill pay. You should set up two important alerts in your online banking. First, you want to have a weekly email alert showing you the balance in your bank account. Second, you will want to have a special alert set up to alert you of a low balance in your checking account. For example, you may want to have the system send you an email if your account balance goes beneath some threshold number, e.g. $1,000, so that you will know that you may need to get more money in your account so that your automated bills will not be disrupted for insufficient funds.


5. Do a quick look every few days at the activity in your online banking. Use your smart phone or log in via computer to make sure that all looks good and that the important bills like mortgage, rent, auto payment etc. have been timely paid. Also, take a look at any strange transactions that do not look familiar to audit for any erroneous debits from your account.

I have been paying bills online for about 5 years now and I experienced a few bumps on the way. In fact I make about 20 to 25 online payments per month - all automated so that I am spending like none of my down time paying my bills. What's more I write no more than 1 to 2 paper checks per month. It's all dialed in and I have a system to make sure that all of the bills are effortlessly and automatically being paid.

But it was not always smooth sailing when navigating the online bill pay waters. There were a few mess ups that took place but have since been corrected. But from these temporary setbacks I learned these important secrets to making sure that the right bills got paid and got paid on time.

I learned from these mishaps and have since added a five step process to make sure the bills are being paid on time. So here's the Five Secrets to Paying Your Bills Online:

1. Create a " Billpay Audit Chart" of all of your recurring monthly bills. You should set this up in a program like Excel or in a Word table. Even if you get your bills fully automated, you still need a centralized system to know how each of your bills are being paid. What should be on this list? Place your important bills that are paid automatically each month. Some examples of what should be on this list: mortgage payment or rent, car payment, cable TV bill, phone bill, gas bill, electric bill, water bill, credit card, and cell phone bill. Add a few columns to track average amount due, due date, and whether you have set this up on automatic payment.


2. Track the source and method of the automatic payment for each bill you have. What we mean here is that you need to keep track of whether the bill is paid through your online banking at your bank or is set up as a ACH debit from the creditor themself. ACH bill payment refers to the instance where you send a voided check to your utility provider for example and you ask them to deduct the monthly charges from your checking account. In other cases you will want to note that the monthly expense is being charged to your credit card. You can add a column in your Billpay Audit Chart to note the payment method for each of your bills.


3. Set up reminders of when important bills are paid. There's a lot of alerts in your online banking setup that can notify you by email or even text alerts (depending on what your bank offers) when a payment is made. Take full advantage of these alerts to keep track of your recurring payments that are going out each month.


4. Set up special alerts in your online banking as a safety net for your automated bill pay. You should set up two important alerts in your online banking. First, you want to have a weekly email alert showing you the balance in your bank account. Second, you will want to have a special alert set up to alert you of a low balance in your checking account. For example, you may want to have the system send you an email if your account balance goes beneath some threshold number, e.g. $1,000, so that you will know that you may need to get more money in your account so that your automated bills will not be disrupted for insufficient funds.


5. Do a quick look every few days at the activity in your online banking. Use your smart phone or log in via computer to make sure that all looks good and that the important bills like mortgage, rent, auto payment etc. have been timely paid. Also, take a look at any strange transactions that do not look familiar to audit for any erroneous debits from your account.