Repeating payments

"Alek" wrote

For some reason, say, old age, I no longer know how to set up a new repeating payment in Quicken (2017 Deluxe).

Suppose I bought a new car and am making a monthly payment to XYZ Credit.

Would someone kindly walk me through the steps to set up a repeating payment so that every month -- without my intervention -- I send a request to my bank to send XYZ money?

I have two listed under Bill and Income Reminders > Repeating Online but for the life of me, I do not remember what I did to get them there.

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Assuming your bank has online billpay, you can setup the equivalent of a Quicken "repeating online payment" at their website.

Then in Quicken all you need is a regular repeating payment transaction (which can be Automatically entered in your Quicken register). Your actual payment transaction will be made automatically by the financial institution and you will receive a downloaded transaction for the amount of the payment that was made.

If you are making a loan payment, you can setup the loan in Quicken and plan to use the loan payment transaction Quicken creates. For most car loans, you will have to modify the principal/interest split for each transaction as it occurs, but presumably you'd have to do that even it you did not setup the loan in Quicken.

If you feel you must have a Quicken "repeating online payment": _ Create a new "Bill" reminder _ Make the payee a payee in your Online Payee List _ Make the "From" account a Quicken account that is activated for online billpay _ To the right of the From account, put a checkmark in "Use Online Bill Pay" _ Put a checkmark in the resulting "Make this a repeating online payment" box

When the new Reminder is complete, make sure you do an update with the financial institution.

And I would never allow any company to withdraw funds from any account of mine. Never, never, never. Push payments only.

The problem to this statement is that the world is moving forward, and some businesses REQUIRE their pulling their money out of the account (perhaps for some value-add discount). For example, Verizon Wireless offers a $5/month credit PER PHONE for their doing this. I have six people on my family plan, that's $30 a month credit on my phone bill.

Hard to pass up.

A method that business use (often for their payroll account) is to set up an account that is only used for such pulls, and fund it through automatic transfers at the bank level prior to a known payment withdrawal. That way, it is is hacked, only that account that is used for such pulls is affected.

You would be mistaken. I have never had a late payment, and if I did, my bank would be responsible for resolving it and for any late fees imposed by the biller.

Agreed. But Verizon and the like will bill my credit card, not take money directly from my bank account. Credit card transactions are protected. I can dispute them and not be required to pay that charge until the dispute is resolved. With direct debite, the money is taken immediately and I have to fight to get it returned.

True. This will protect you somewhat, but does not resolve the problem above.

No, Verizon does NOT give you the discount if you bill to the credit card. Must to be a debit card-type transaction. I tried that approach.

Bummer. TMobile has no problem with billing my credit card and offering a discount for doing so. I assumed Verizon would be the same.

Note that ontime payment is not the concern here. You can instruct your bank or Quicken to make an ontime one time or recurring payment just as easily as you can tell the biller to autowithdraw funds from your account.

The difference is who is initiating the transaction and who bears the risk of resolving any overbilling. This may be an argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

In short - if you authorize a biller to withdraw funds from your account and there is an error, you are responsible for resolving the problem and you are out the funds until it is resolved.

If you instruct your bank or Quicken to make a payment, the bank or Quicken are responsible for making that payment on time. The biller has to justify any further payment to your satifaction and for you to authorize further payment.

Now, most major billers are reputable but errors do happen. If they do, I prefer they be resolved to my satisfaction before I authorize any additional payment, or have to wait for a biller to refund an overcharge.

I don't know about Verizon, since I don't use them, but regarding "the like," some will bill your credit card and others want a direct transfer from a bank account.

I greatly prefer the credit card, for the reason you state and also because I get airline mileage on my credit card, but for the companies that don't permit credit card use, I use direct transfers from my bank account.

Oh, me too if I could do that. Remember for the vendor, much cheaper for them to go the debit card route than a credit card.