Online Bill Pay

Online bill pay is a service offered by banks, brokerage firms, and other private companies that allows you to pay your bills online using your web browser. If your bank offers online banking (access to your account information and transaction details online) chances are good that they also offer an online bill pay service. These days, most banks and financial institutions offer online bill pay at no additional charge, if you have less than 20 bills to pay each month and if you go over that number, a nominal fee usually applies.

Here is how it works: Once you sign up for the online bill pay service, you will be given a user name and password to gain access to the bill pay system. You will then log in and enter the account numbers and other payment information for the bills that you pay each month. You can decide to pay these bills manually or set up rules for automatic payment. If for example you have a bill that is always the same amount each month (your mortgage for example) the system can be configured to pay the bill the first of every month automatically. The same is true for credit cards and other recurring charges.

You can virtually eliminate credit card late fees by setting up an automatic payment that makes the minimum scheduled payment each month for you. If you need to make a manual payment, you can simply select the bills you wish to pay, enter the amount for each payee and submit the payment. Many online bill pay systems also allow you to schedule the exact date of a manual payment. One of the really great things about online bill pays is that there is no restriction on the number of payments you can send each payee each month.

If for example you decide to make a manual payment to a credit card in addition to a scheduled minimum payment, there is no penalty. It is important to remember that just like sending a payment in the mail, it can take several days for the payment to reach its destination so you have to plan accordingly.

Source: www.varticles.com