Bill Pay with Bank of America - CA

"Describing experiences" isn't going to help you.

I've been using it for years, and it works just fine. Any specific questions?

I've been using BofA Bill Pay with Quicken for a couple of days now and it's working very well. It connects, downloads inbound/outbound transactions flawlessly thus far.

I wasn't looking for anything specific because I haven't ran into anything that I've needed specific answers to.

Matt

Are you asking about Quicken Billpay or Direct Connect with Bank of America or Bank of America Online Bill Pay? These are three different products. I use Quicken Billpay ($9.95 / mo) and issue payments from a Bank of America checking account (plus others) without problems.

On 2 May 2007 20:35:55 -0700, Oilcan wrote: : : Are you asking about Quicken Billpay or Direct Connect with Bank of : America or Bank of America Online Bill Pay? These are three different : products. I use Quicken Billpay ($9.95 / mo) and issue payments from : a Bank of America checking account (plus others) without problems. :

I set it up with BofA Bill Pay which is the ability to schedule payments directly from Quicken instead of accessing BofA.com. I also applied for Quicken Bill Pay, but I don't see the advantage over the integrated Bill Pay by BofA.

I can definitely see how someone could get confused by all the available options.

As I stated, my experience has been pleasant thus far. If I would have known earlier how much better Quicken integrates with Bank of America, I would have made the switch long ago.

Matt

For using a single bank for your payments, the experience is about the same. I have 7 payments accounts (banks, credit unions, brokerage - even my HELOC) through Quicken Bill Pay. I also can schedule payments directly from Quicken to all 7 of those payment accounts for the same fee that B of A is charging you.

The one additional advantage for me is the I can receive over 95% of my statements (credit cards, utilities, etc.) from the Quicken Bill pay website. This allows me to avoid having to log into each website when I get a message that a 'New Statement is Available'. I download these statements and attach them to either the Account or Transaction. When I receive these bills, I now schedule a payment from the Quciken Bill Payment site which automatically gets downloaded as if I scheduled it from Quicken (no double entry), Depending on the number of monthly bills you receive, you might not find any value in this. For me Qucken Bill Pay is a time saver.

BTW, the only payment account that I could do direct connect from Quicken is B of A, however this is not my primary financial institution. Either way, direct connect is the way to go. Too bad most remaining banks charge for this service.

Excellent point. This is probably the reason BofA is more than adequate for me. Also, the fee is waived for my account type.

Now I have my first specific question. BofA has the concept of e-Bills. However, I don't see a way for Quicken to notify me of a new e-Bill. Is there a function I'm missing for this to occur?

Downloading statements as .pdf and attaching them is a new concept to me coming from M$ Money. I've briefly perused the feature, but it may be something I could be using. The trouble is, not all financial institutions make statements available online and it's a pain to scan them in.

Thanks again! Matt

The notification would likely have to come from B of A website that you have received a new bill. I receive an email from Quicken Billpay that states a new statement has been received.

You don't need to scan them. Search for a program PDF995. Its free and it allows you to print a webpage as a PDF document (in otherwords, you bypass the paper and the scanning). Most sites have some online statement (may not be in a PDF format) and has given the option of opening the statement in a seperate window. The software is tricky to configure. I use these on my Citibank statement and some others.

You know BOA web page support E-Bills? It will download all your bills and list them for you to download in PDF formort for free on BOA web page under Bill Pay. Once you download the E-Bill it will ask you if you want to make a payment and automatically enter the due date and amount for you. Next time you do a 1 set update thoses bill payment will be downloaded into Quicken for you. It also supports a feature called "My Portfolio" which is free and lets you view and manage your online accounts, including non-Bank of America accounts, from a single location.

Bank of America just like many other banks has ways to waive the Quicken direct connect fee. With Bank of America anyone with a Prima, Advantage, Prefered or First Gold Choice account or better get the fee waived. This is the same account just different names depending on the area you live and balance requirements of the above accounts varries between $2.5K-$10K combined balance between all Bank of America linked accounts which includes outstanding balances on credit cards, mortgages and balances held in brokerage accounts with BOA.