I've been a longtime user of Quicken's bill pay to pay all my monthly bills. Year's ago it was called CheckFree and at some point they changed the name to Quicken BillPay, still charging the same monthly fee. I don't remember if I had to do anything else when the changed the name. It seemed seamless enough that I thought it was simply a name change, still executed through CheckFree company. It's pretty convenient to use Quicken to pay my bills and, until recently, felt worth the $10 a month.
Well, living a more frugal these days, I'm noticing my back has online bill pay for no cost to me. They pay the CheckFree company a fee for all their customers. This has me thinking...
Is there a way to use the free online bill pay available through my bank (actually it's a credit union) but continue to use the Quicken application to send of those bills?
Has anybody tried this?
I called my credit union and they didn't know but immediately transferred me to CheckFree where the guy had virtually no knowledge of Quicken whatsoever. He gave me two support telephone numbers for Quicken and wished me good luck. Since they are closed for receiving customer support calls now, I thought I'd send a message to this group to hear of any experiences.
Tried? Not tried; I've been doing this for *many* years, with Bank of America. I'm sure the same is true of many of us here, and not just with Bank of America.
It's not only convenient to pay bills this way, but besides saving the postage, it lets me pay each bill as soon as it arrives, but schedule the payment as far in advance as I want to. That's much better than what I used to do years ago--have a tickler file of bills to be paid, marked with the date of when I wanted to pay them.
My personal feeling is that this is one of the single best features of Quicken, so if my bank didn't support it, that would be sufficient reason for me to switch banks.
CheckFree was then (for sure) and is now (I believe) a separate company. I think Intuit owned some of CheckFree at one time, but later dropped that ownership stake.
It wasn't just a name change ... Intuit stopped using Checkfree. I believe another company now provides the software that Quicken Billpay uses.
If your financial institution offfers billpay (and I think most do) and they offer the ability to transmit online billpay instructions via Quicken (not all do), then you can use Quicken to send your billpay instructions.
But: first, your fi must offer online billpay; second, they must allow you to download using "Direct Connect; third they must offer the ability to upload billpay instructions via Quicken; and lastly, you must qualify to upload those instructions (which sometimes will cost extra).
I believe it is *impossible* that your financial institution offers the ability for you to send billpay instructions to them via Quicken ... but knows nothing about it.
I pay bills online using Quicken's "activate account" procedure. That works for most financial institutions, but not all. See the Help file. (Also try Google).
I don't have to use Quicken's Bill Pay nor do I have to use my banks Bill Pay. I don't pay my bank or Quicken any monthly fee for this service. I have doing it that way since 1998.
Quicken Bill Pay service is provided by Metavante Corporation. For my Credit Union, their revamped bill pay is basically the Quicken Bill Pay service provided by guess who...Metavante Corporation. My Credit Union also offers a product call Financial Works (by Quicken) which is guess what...Quicken Online. My assumption is that this will become Mint within a year.
Basically the big advantage is that I had for Quicken Bill Pay was the ability to send payments from multiple financial institutions and accounts (I had seven set-up) and I could enter a payment from Quicken or the Quicken Bill Pay website. I also appreciated e-statements (e-bills) were gathered in one place.
I have simplified my finances and now I can get all of the same services from my Credit Union (my primary account) and I can make free transfers to/from other financial institutions (such as my brokerages, HELOC) when needed (3 to 5 business days to clear).
With your Credit Union, you will not likely be able to initiate payments from within Quicken, but you will be able to do it from their website. The only drawback is I have is that I need to manually enter my transactions (checks) into Quicken as they do not post (available for download) until the payment is issued by the Credit Union (most likely an ACH payment, but sometimes a check). I do this so I can tell how much money remains in my account (the checkbook aspect of Quicken). You could likely have the same experience with your Credit Union.
The nice thing is you can try this now before you cancel Quicken Bill Pay by entering a payment from your Credit Union and watch how it flows to Quicken. Hopefully you can live with what is provided and avoid the Quicken Bill Pay service.
Oilcan
-----Orig> Hello,
CheckFree was then (for sure) and is now (I believe) a separate company. I think Intuit owned some of CheckFree at one time, but later dropped that ownership stake.
It wasn't just a name change ... Intuit stopped using Checkfree. I believe another company now provides the software that Quicken Billpay uses.
If your financial institution offfers billpay (and I think most do) and they offer the ability to transmit online billpay instructions via Quicken (not all do), then you can use Quicken to send your billpay instructions.
But: first, your fi must offer online billpay; second, they must allow you to download using "Direct Connect; third they must offer the ability to upload billpay instructions via Quicken; and lastly, you must qualify to upload those instructions (which sometimes will cost extra).
I believe it is *impossible* that your financial institution offers the ability for you to send billpay instructions to them via Quicken ... but knows nothing about it.
Most free bank billpay services I'm familiar with use a web or phone interface only. If you want the convenience of paying bills through Quicken, you'll have to pay the monthly charge.
When you use Quicken's "activate account" procedure to pay bills, does that mean you can post the bill in Quicken's register and it will be transmitted to the FI's Bill Pay system (and you're not using Quicken Bill Pay)? Just how does your procedure work?
I use Quicken Bill Pay and post my bills to my FI's Checking Account in Quicken, but the bill is transferred to Quicken Bill Pay and they transmit a EFT/ACH to pay the bill and it is taken out of my FI's Checking Account.
I can almost guarantee you that you can not do online billpay without using your financial institution's billpay or Quicken Billpay (I am virtually certain there are no other possibilities).
The fact that you (apparently) do not have to spend any money to use billpay doesn't say that you are not using either of those sources (though I will bet that if you don't see any monthly charge, you're using billpay from your financial institution ... they often include billpay as a "no cost" priviledge for customers with certain accounts).
I don't pay a monthly fee for billpay with my financial institution (BofA) either ... but they definitely provide the means by which I do my online billpay via Quicken.
It makes NO SENSE to go through all that effing bullshit and probably have to pay some fees, to boot. Up here in Edmonton, almost ANY company offering an ongoing service, e.g. cable, water, city taxes, power, gas, etc, offers AUTOMATIC payment via electronic debit from your bank account or sometimes, if your wish, your credit card. AT NO CHARGE. My bank does not charge me any regular fees, regardless, unless I do something stupid such as using some other bank's ATM. If you don't want AUTOMATIC debiting, then most banks allow you to pay through their website re most utility companies, taxes, etc..
WHAT convenience? I have automatic debiting for almost all my bills set up through my bank. I get the paper or e-bill every month in time to review it for errors. Eventually, ON THE DUE DATE, no sooner, the bill is debited from my bank account. NO CHARGE. I have to do absolutely NOTHING to pay the bill...aside from ensuring that there is enough money in the account. No having to dig out checks , envelopes, stamps, etc. No having to go on line. NADA. Nil. Nothing. No fees, either. Get with it people. You do NOT need Quicken to pay bills, aside from recording the transaction for your own records.
It is a matter of semantics. I do not personally have to sign up for my bank's (Wachovia) bill pay service by going on to their web site and clicking on their Bill Pay service. Instead, I let Quicken do all of that using "activate" so I don't have to concern myself with whatever the bank is using internally to process my transactions from Quicken, whenther it be Bill Pay, Checkfree or whatever they might call it in the future. For the account I have with Wachovia, the use of Quicken is free of charge.
That is correct. When you "activate" an account, Quicken will establish a connection with your bank's Bill Pay system.
Just how does your procedure work?
You can open the Quicken's Help system and enter the keyword "activate" to see out to set it up.
I do the same thing but I don't use Quicken Bill Pay. A log of my transactions is created and that is somehow transmitted to the bank. Check numbers are assigned by I don't know by who (Quicken or the bank) and the amount is paid by the bank with in (for me) 6 days. I really don't know the details and as far as I'm concerned it all works by FM (effing magic) ;-)
I have free bill pay with my choice of MS Money or Quicken at Wachovia. It's a free checking account with free bill pay as long as I keep $1000 combined in all my Wachovia accounts.
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