7 Steps To Easily Manage And Organize All Your Bills Online
The day you come home to find that your electricity has been completely shut off simply because of a forgotten unpaid bill is the day you need to find a better way to organize your finances. It's not that you don't have the money to pay the bill on time. It is more than likely something as simple as overlooking the bill between the mire and mess of the other bills, paper mail and statements.
Many people have their finances organized and planned right down to the cent and you are probably like most. Many of the most organized people need help with organizing and managing their bills to avoid having their electricity shut off by losing bills or forgetting to pay them.
The solution? Pay and manage bills online. Here are a few steps you can take to go digital with your household and financial accounts:
1. Make a spreadsheet. Record all the accounts that you use to pay bills. Enter that information into the first column in a basic worksheet in Excel. In the second column, enter the amount for the bill. The third column is for the bill due date and then put an "X" on the fourth column once you have paid the bill. Some of the bills you can keep track of are credit cards, electricity, cable and cell phones. This will give you an idea of how many accounts you're going to need to start paying online. Most companies provide online bill pay, so you should be able to pay your major bills online without a problem.
2. Set up online bill pay. Once your spreadsheet for the accounts is complete, you will need to go to the respective company's site and set up each with an online account. (An example we can use is for AT&T Wireless. If you are not already registered on the site, register as a new user under the Wireless portion of the site. This will also be one less account to sign up for if you have already registered at the site Once you're logged in, you should be able to view all of your AT&T account information and pay your bills right from the site.)
3. Go paperless. Now that all of your accounts are set up online, there is no need to receive paper mail from those companies. All of the paper clutter is unnecessary and will simply confuse you even more. You can log in to all of your online accounts once you have set them up with online bill pay and click the paperless option to stop receiving paper mail. This option is under the sites Settings portion for most companies. If you have trouble finding it, simply contact the company or go to the Customer Service page.
4. Set reminders for yourself. You will need a reminder for the due dates even if you are paying your bills online. You can get email alerts to remind you of when it is close to the due date from some sites. You can see if this is an option by looking in the Settings portion on the site. If they provide alerts, select a date enough in advance so that you will be comfortable with the amount of time in which you will receive the bill reminders. So you won't forget to pay the bills if the site doesn't offer that option, you will need to manually enter the due dates into your calendar. Digital calendars, such as Google iCal or Outlook, are helpful because you can set digital reminders that will alert you automatically.
5. Pay your bills. You can use the online bill pay options from the provider to set up no-hassle, easy payments online! You may need to make a note like in Step 1 on your financial spreadsheet if the company doesn't offer online bill pay. That way, you will still be able to use paper mail to pay those bills.
6. Check it off. Mark your spreadsheet once the bill is paid so you will have peace of mind for the rest of the month.
7. Consolidate with bill-organizing software (optional). One way to avoid having to complete steps 4 and 6 is by purchasing software that will automatically do them for you. Instead of using several different websites, you can manage and organize all of your bills in one place. A few options are Moneydance and Family Finance Planner, which will allow you to pay your bills using the software, create a financial budget, and alert you if you are exceeding that budget.
One of the easiest and most convenient ways to manage your financial life is to manage and organize your bills online. Having to sort through endless paper mail increases the likelihood that you will misplace a bill or statement and therefore forget to pay it - even for those of us who never miss a beat! So what are you waiting for? Make your financial life a whole lot easier by finding an online bill pay system that works for you.
About the Author
One of the easiest ways to make the financial side of life manageable is to organize and manage bills online. Steward Gearlds knows the best way to organize your bills is to have them all in one convenient and easy to use place. Visit http://www.manilla.com/what-is-manilla/how-is-it-free/ for more information.
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