If you have online access to your bank account, there is a good chance that you have access to automatic bill payment services as well. Many banks are now offering this service for the convenience of their customers. Automatic bill payment services allow the account holder to schedule certain types of bills to be paid automatically out of their checking account on a monthly basis. Here are some of the reasons why everyone should consider signing up for automatic bill payments through their bank.
Easy To Use
Signing up for automatic bill payments is very easy to do, often taking only a couple of minutes to set up. For the service to work properly, you must input the company to be paid, the amount to pay, and the date the payment should be made. Many of the most commonly paid companies with monthly payments will already be preloaded into the system, allowing you to just click on each company you want to add to the list. These companies and amounts can be changed at any time by simply signing into your account online and editing the information.
Payments Made On Time
Signing up for automatic bill payments is one of the best ways to ensure that all of your bills are paid on time every month. As long as the due date for the payment is on the same day of the month each month, you can easily schedule the payment occur a few days earlier to ensure that the company receives the payment on time. This is considerably more reliable than mailing a check that could get lost or diverted or even attempting to remember the due date so you can make the payment online or over the phone. When the payments are scheduled and paid electronically, the risk of incurring a late charge for an overdue payment is greatly reduced.
Things To Think About
There are several things that you should keep in mind when using automatic bill payment services. It is important to keep enough money in the account to cover the payments that are being made. If your paycheck is direct-deposited into your account, this should not be a problem. You will also want to make sure that the payments are scheduled at least several days before the bill is generally due. This way, you ensure that the payment arrives on time even if the due date changes due to a weekend or holiday, as many companies do not process payments on these days.
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Husband has something like this set on his bank account and, even if I didn’t see its merits months ago, am starting to see them. We just need to ‘focus’ on having the money in his account (which let’s say it’s not that difficult) and payments are automatically sent at a certain date. No more bills left unpaid.