How to Pay Bills Online

The Internet has spawned many conveniences and new efficiencies. Chief among them is the ability to pay bills online. Most every business and agency provides customers the option of paying their bills online. This saves time, energy, money, and most of all, headaches for the consumer.

Instructions

1. Decide the mode of online bill pay. Most banks now offer the service free for most accounts. This is the simplest method because the payments are established centrally at the person's bank. A person can set up an online bill payment with each business or agency account, but this is rather time consuming.

2. Designate the account from which the payment may be withdrawn. The most popular choice is the main checking account. Some have concerns about giving direct financial information over the Internet for other companies to store in their databases. Therefore, they choose credit cards that have less of a liability risk in case of theft. Most companies allow credit cards as payments for bills online.

3. Determine if the payment is recurring or not. A recurring payment is great in most cases because it only requires a one-time setup. The downside to recurring payments is that if there is a cash flow problem one month the payment goes through regardless of the funds available, much like a bad check.

4. Obtain the routing number or credit card number to set up the account. This is if the accounts are set up individually. If the account is set up through the bank, they will have the routing information already. The routing number is located at the bottom of checks and is a nine-digit number.

5. Check the first month to make sure everything is working correctly. Make a list of all the accounts set up through online bill payment. Then check this list against the checking or credit accounts used for the online bill payment. Contact the business or agency as soon as possible if there is a problem. Also, monitor the account each month in case there are problems down the line.