Quicken online payment

Did you sign up for the service with Citibank or Quicken Bill pay that will make a differnce on how you payments get processed.

Citibank support Quicken Intergration and Citibank charges $9.99 a month unless you meet balance requirements in which cause they waive the fee. In most states that balance requirement is $10K+. If you signed up with Citibank then they will either pay the bill by ETF or Bank check.

If you signed up with Quicken Bill pay they also charge $9.99 and lets you use the service with all bank accounts you give them. They will pay the payee 1 of the 3 ways. ETF, Bank Check or a Check drawn against you account. Benfit of having a check drawn against your account is that the funds will not be deducted till the check clears so you know when the payee recieved the check and it was cashed.

I personally use Citibank because they waive the fee. I personaly dont like the fact they always send a bank check out to payee that dont accept EFT because then I dont know if the payee recieved the check ever or not till I get my new month bill. Before Citibank used to waive the fee I always used the service direct from Quicken and I really liked the fact they almost always sent out checks drawn on my account so I know when the checks cleared. Also the float on the interest even tho it was minor was nice added bonus too.

I never signed up for Quicken Bill Pay, but I do recall that when I signed up with Citibank for direct connect, they asked if I would want to pay bills through Quicken and I said yes. They also waived the fee for me, since I meet the balance requirements. Based upon your experience, Citibank will continue to pay either with a check or ETF as in the past. Even when Citibank pays by ETF, I could log onto their site and see if my payment cleared. Presumably, that will continue to be the case.

When I made my first (and thus far only) bill payment from within Quicken, it appeared that I had a choice of bank accounts (I also have an account with Chase) but I never signed up directly with Chase, so I probably will need to use Citibank for my payments, which is what I usually do anyhow.

I think I will like the convenience of paying through Quicken, as it is a lot easier than logging onto the Citibank site to make payments. Until a few months ago, I used web connect so I had to log on to citibank.com (and various other sites) frequently to download my transactions. I decided to discontinue using credit cards that do not support direct connect, so now I retrieve all my data through one step update. I have saved a lot of time since I made that change.

ob wrote: ==snipped=

I have Wachovia and have a similiar situation with one check they mail directly to the Payee. With Wachovia, you can log on to their "Online Service" and view any manual checks that have been written either by you or the bank. All these manual checks including ones written by the bank are stored on microfilm which you can view on line. I assume most banks provide this kind of service.

Citizens Bank does not charge for using their BillPay, but they do charge for online transaction update. Using their BillPay means you have to enter all the transactions again in Quicken if you want them categorized in your system along with all your other accounts. This gets to be very important if you use TurboTax for your tax returns.

Citizens Bank told me they are looking into eliminating the charge for automatic transaction updates via Quicken. They said it depends on competitive market forces in the local banking industry. (That means they are colluding to agree on the low water mark!)

Also, Citizens Bank said that checks involving personal accounts MUST use paper checks, not electronic. I wondered why it took 12 days to move money from one CB account to a different one in the same bank. That was the answer.

No, I think you misunderstood me.

Quicken Bill Pay Via Citibank debits the money from your account on the due date no matter what. I pay my doctors bills who dont accept EFT So Citibank mails out a bank check and will debit the money on the due date even if the doctor did not cash the bank check or recieve it yet.

With Quicken Bill Pay from inuit they used to mail out checks drawn on my account so until the doctor cashed the check they did not remove the money from my account. That way I know that doctor got the check and when they cashed it.

In 3 years I have been with using Quicken Via Citibank only 1X a mail check got lost. That was to my pool man. I did not know the pool man did not get the check till the next month when I got his new bill because I always paid him on the 8th of each month and Citibank took out the money on the 8th of the month.

If I would have still been using Inuit bill pay I would have know before the next bill came that the check got lost because it would have never been cashed or debited from my bank account. Also CItibank did return all the check inuit wrote on my account because they where drawn on my account but they do not return bank checks with your statement. The reason I was told they do not return bank checks is because the way there system process the payment is cash is debited from you account and cashier check is purchased as opposed to way Inuit did it was write a check drawn on you account. So when a problem comes up you need to let Citibank know there is a problem and you are 100% powerless. If someone claimed they did not recieve a payment from whom Inuit mailed a check to all you have to do was fax the inclosed check to them as you have the orginal check returned to you.

Now I used Inuit bill pay for 2 years never had a problem. I been using Quicken Via Citibank for 3 years. 1 time a check got lost to my pool man. I did not find out about it till the next month when my pool man gave me an over due bill because Citibank debited the month on the 8th like they always do. When I called Citibank to report the payment was lost I had to call like 10X and send emails to Citibank from inside of Quicken like 10X before they voided out the check and issued the poor pool man a new check. They keep wanting to wait 90 days just incase the check had be cleared. Not sure how Inuit would have handled it but I think it is much easier to cancel a check drawn on my account vs a cashier check which might have been the reason Citibank wanted to wait.

"ob" wrote in news:1129358872.274070.101830 @g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

I have been banking with Citibank since the late 70's (NYC first, now NJ, but I still work in Manhattan). When they first came out with Direct Access, I used that. Hardly any problems, except a few times with Jamaica Water Co, who claimed I was late, but that got rectified every time by Citibank.

When Quicken started having billpay, I switched because entering the payment once was better. I now have the free plan whereby Quicken (Checkfree?) sends the drafts out whether by canoe, bicycle or EFT. I obey the lead times for timely payment, and have not had any problems whatsoever, except that I don't like having to keep 20K in all accounts (I think it is 10K if you don't have brokerage). My citibank checking is an "everything counts" account. I pay no fees, and the payments only get deducted from my balance after the payee cashed the check (or whatever).

Occasionally I still use Direct Access for payments, but that ius getting less and less. I have switched many recurring bills to automatic withdrawal, using recurring transactions in Quicken to auto magically enter them into the register. Amounts and dates need to be adjusted at times, but overall it makes life easier as long as you keep enough money in the account.

It has been my experience that transactions appear in Direct Access sooner than they do upon downloading into Quicken (onestep update). Also, Direct Access can scare you since early in the morning they *will* have deducted that day's checks from the balance, but the actual withdrawals don't show until after 7 or 8 AM.

Sorry to break it to you. Citibank debits the money on the due date no matter what. If you want to prove it is just mail yourself a $5 check and dont cash it. You will get the bank check 1-2 days before the due you entered into Quicken. Dont cash it and you will see the funds will be debited on the due date. If you read the terms of service that Citibank gave you it says very clearly all checks will go out as bank checks and the funds will be withdrawn from your account on the due date you enter. Also states all EFT will go out 1 day prior to due date you enter but the funds will not be withdrawn till the due date.

I know this is really not a big deal as float would really be 1-2 days but I think the big loss is you dont know when or if a merchant recieved payment. If a check get losts and no one cashs it the funds will be debited from your account on the due date.

When I had the service direct with Inuit they always mailed out checks drawn on your account. So if you mail a check to yourself and dont cash it the funds wont be taken out of the bank ever.

Now my account is based out of California not sure if New York based account work different so I guess it could be possible that in New York Citibank mails out check drawn on your account vs bank checks.

I have the same account as you and I dont get my checks returned nor can I see the checks online that Citibank send out for me that I entered into Quicken and I was told because they are bank checks as opposed to check drawn directly on my account.

"ob" wrote in news:1129393670.992189.229980 @g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

You may be right. I checked a particular payment, and can't see a check, although I know a check was sent. It just says "authorized debit". I have had no problems with any such payment, ever. I just hope I never have to get proof of payment for these debits. Hey, I got it - I told Citibank to make the payment, the payment was deducted, now it is Citibank's problem to make sure the payment was made. At least that was what they did a few times in the very beginning of Direct Access when the $%#@ Jamaica Water Company played dumb.

I'm NOT worried.

Correct I used to use the old Dos Direct Access software before then in the middle used Inuit Bill Pay because I hated typeing the the payments into the dos program/ web page and then again into Quicken. I just found Inuit Bill pay service to be more end user friendly as they really dont want to collect float on your money for 2-3 days till the check clears the bank but prefer to draw the check against your account and give you the back up and ability to see when and if a check was cashed. Remember by drawn the checks on your account they also reduce the amount of customer service people they need because you as the end user can tell if a check was lost or not. Remember Citibank is a bank and they make there money leanding out money so that float adds up. Inuit is not a bank nor do they lend money so they arent motived to collect funds before checks are cashed in hopes of collecting the float.

Only reason I got cheezed and called like 10X and wrote 10X nasty emails was they wanted me wait 90 days before they would re-issue a new check to pool man. They offered to pay all late's they pool man charged me. I did not want the pool man to refuse to clean my pool or have problems with the pool man for $138.00. Citibank treated that payment like it was a million dollar check as because it was an offical check drawn from Citibank there was no way to stop payment on it. Remeber the problem was not that pool man got the payment late. He never recieved the check at all. Maybe if the pool man would have recieved the check late they could have called and sloved the problem nice and fast.

I understand that Citibank takes the money our of your account when you make the online payment, rather than when the recipient cashes the check. If I do my banking at Citibank's web site, I can look at my past payments to see what has cleared and what is still outstanding. I have made many thousand of payments over the past bunch of years with Citibank Online (formerly Direct Access), and have experienced very, very few payment problems. I cannot recall having a payment problem, particularly with credit cards, utilities, etc, in many years. I also know (because Citibank tells me) which payments are made through EFT and which are paid by checks. I suppose what I am unclear about is how these two issues are handled when I make my payments through Quicken. When I set up my Chase MasterCard payment, I was asked to input the mailing address for the payment. Will Citibank mail a check, or utilize EFT? Also, how will I determine if a check cleared?

Quicken via Citibank they dont debit the money till the due date you enter into Quicken as opposed to there webpage they debit the money on the date they process the payment. So for EFT you get an extra 2 day float on your money vs making the same payment via there webpage.

I have noticed Quicken Via Citibank uses for same payee list for the most part as Citibankonline.com uses. So for example American Express will be paid EFT. If you look in Quicken under you payee list all payee that require 2 days to process are paid by EFT all payee that require 4 days are paid by check.

The downside to using Quicken via Citibank vs inuit bill pay is when a check is sent out with Citibank it is sent out via a bank check and because the money is debited on the due date you have no idea when a check clears or if it was lost. When i had inuit services they mailed out checks drawn so basically when you saw the funds debited from you account you know the check cleared.

Just to make sure you understand you can sign up for Quicken Billpay from Citibank(I use this service now as Citibank waives the $9.99 fee) or you can sign up Quicken Billpay from Inuit which is $9.99. Both are different services and both seem to pay all major companies via EFT the difference seems to be how they make there check payments.

I didn't know that. I just looked up the payee for my first completed payment, to my Chase Manhattan Bank credit card. The actual payee is Cardmember Services. The lead time is four days, which would indicate that they mail a check, but I am certain that when I paid via the Citibank web site they paid by EFT.

I now see what you mean. On the Citibank web site, this payment is shown as an 'authorized transfer'. This is similar to situations where I have authorized vendors to automatically debit my account. In these cases, there is no means of determining when or if a payment clears, except by checking on the receiving end. For example, I now know that my Chase credit card payment cleared because I see that my Chase online balance has been reduced. But, if the recipient had no online inquiry capability, such as my gardener, I would not know if a payment was missed until I received my next paper statement. This is not a good situation, but I think I can live with it, as very, very few payments actually get lost in transit.

I am 100% that sure "Chase Manhattan Bank credit card" or "Cardmember Services" went out via an ETF. Depending on the version of Quicken you are using will depend if the under payee list it lists "Lead Time" based on the process time or not.

In Quicken 2005-2006 Payee list will display "Lead Time" for all payee thus meaning you need to schedule payment 4 days in advance. If you are using 2004 or before in the payee list it list let you schedule an EFT

2 days prior and check payee require 4 days.

In Quicken 2005-2006 tho you can click on the lighting blot in the registery it will display a "Process on" and "Due by" date. If the "Process on" is 1 or 2 days before the "Due By" then it went EFT if the there is 4 days between the "Process on" and "Due By" then it went out via check.

Only reason I know Citibank pay Chase eletronic is i have both my mortgage and a credit with chases and payment always gone eletronic.

You are clearly correct. I clicked on the Status button. It said 'online payment processed on 10/18/05' and 'deliver by 10/19/05', a difference of just one day. I'm running Quicken 2006 Premier Home and Business. According to the Chase web site, my payment was received on 10/19/05, and according to the Citibank web site, my payment was charged against my account on

10/19/05, the same day.

Yes I am not sure why Quicken choose to change "Lead Time" under payee in 2005 and 2006 to a standard 4 days. Before in older versions the lead time used to be based on how the payment was made. Sorry I was not very clear in my first post. I have been using Quicken Via Citibank for a while now and I did not notice the change myself till you said Chase was paid by check. Then I went to FAQ on Quicken web page and found the answer that explained the change in how lead time is calculated and how to determine if a payee was paid by check or EFT.

I believe the "lead time" determines when the payment appears as a reminder (alert). At some point you are supposed to click on it so it will issue a check destined to appear at the payee on the date you wrote on the transaction. Example: I have a repeating payment to XYZ due on the 1st of each month. If the lead time is 10 days, it will alert me on the 20th and maybe I decide to pay it on the 22nd, so I click on it, it appears in the register ("Send"). On the next "Update" the check will be sent to Quicken BillPay and held as long a possible. If a paper check will be sent, that will happen about 4 days before the first of the month. If electronic exchange can be used, it will be done on the day before it is due. Electronic transfer cannot be used for funds going into a personal account by law.

goto Quicken FAQ read the section on payee list lead times. Quicken in version 2005-6 changed the way the payee lead time is calculated. No longer cares if the payee is processed by EFT or check. It assigns it a standard 4 day lead time.

"Note: Quicken does not allow you to schedule a payment sooner than the payee lead time allows. To see lead times for all your payees, choose Online menu > Online Payee. You cannot schedule a payment more than one year in advance.."

And has nothing to do with how the payee is now paid. In older version of Quicken the lead would be either 2 or 4 days depending on how the payee got paid. So if you saw you 2 days you know the payee was paid by EFT and if you saw 4 days you know it was paid by check.

Now only way to find out how the payee is paid is to check the status by clicking on the lighting bolt in the registry which will show a process date and due by date.

Quicken isn't the problem, it's the new banking laws that dictate whether an electronic transaction can be used.

Are you on drugs or just plain stupid? Older version of Quicken and new version of Quicken pay the same people by EFT. Quicken changed there software so you must enter all payment a min of 4 days in advance now. in version prior to 2005 lead time for EFT was payees was 2 days and check payees was 4 days.

Now if you saying there a law that forced Quicken to this you are again plan stupid or on drugs. I can goto

and make a payment for tommorow for any payee I want. If i downgrade back to Quicken 2004 all EFT payee lead time change to 2 days.

QUICKEN CHANGED THEY WAY THERE SOFTWARE WORKS. I AM SURE SOME BANKS COMPLAINED OR ASKED QUICKEN TO DO THIS. ONLY PEOPLE BENFITING FROM THIS CHANGE ARE THE BANKS WHO GET MORE TIME TO PROCESS YOUR PAYMENTS.