Online bill payments - e-banking's sticky trademark

For others, bill payment represents the final frontier of the Internet: Can I trust a computer program to pay my bills cleanly, or should I just stick with writing checks and licking stamps?

If you are tired of piling paper clutter and managing due dates for bills, get ready to cross the border into electronic bill payment. You will be happy to learn that online bill payment is not only easy, but more and more banks in the region are offering the service for free.

Get started
On your e-banking website, you will typically find guides or FAQs that walk you through the steps of how to register the accounts you wish to pay from and payee accounts you wish to pay to. You only need to enter the account information once; your online banking site will keep those accounts available until you remove them. You can always change the accounts from which you wish to pay your bills and add more payees as needed.

Most banks offer this service to cover utility companies and a handful of other recurring billers.

Making payments
Once you have registered the accounts you wish to pay online, the next step is to schedule payment. You simply select the account you wish to pay from, the payee account you wish to pay to and the amount you wish to pay.

Your creditors receive your online payment in one of two ways: electronic payment or check. If the payee is set up to accept electronic payments, your payment is automatically debited from the account you select and deposited electronically into their account, just as if you had written a check.

If the payee cannot accept electronic payments, and most businesses cannot, they will be issued a check based on your online payment instructions, hence your bank's 3-5 day grace period.

Tracking your payments
Naturally, you want to make sure your online bill payments get processed correctly and on time. You should always check your accounts 1-2 days after your request date to verify that your bill payment request has been executed. You should also remember that it could take several days for your creditor to apply the payment to your account.

For peace of mind, you may want to request that your bank send an alert to your e-mail, wireless device or online banking website when a payment clears.

As with account transfers, you may want to print the transaction-completed or receipt page when you pay your bills online as a reminder to make sure they post on your e-banking site or in your next statement.