Is Quick Pay dead for all intents and purposes for Credit Card bills now?

Harry2

I keep being offered "Check Pay" which is useless for "Penalty Bills" (where there is a late payment penalty), because I am not willing to trust USPS nowadays. Would it make any difference if I opened a credit card account that was based the bank where I have my bank account (as opposed to Chase or Citibank, which I do not use for banking)?

Ps56k2

when Chase migrated from Direct Connect to EWC+ … I reverted back to my two entry method - enter once in Quicken via Reminder and then go to Chase online website and use their bill payment feature to enter the actual bill payment.

I never used the Quicken Bill Manager, just the direct interface between Quicken and my Chase checking acct…

Depending on your bank - there may be a bill payment feature, and some banks still have the Direct Connect linkage.

Boatnmaniac

It is my understanding that the elimination of the QuickPay feature with credit cards applies only to those Financial Institutions that have migrated to EWC+. If I am mistaken about this, someone please speak up.

As for me, I use the "pull" bill payment process (i.e., setting up the bill payment on the biller's website to pull payment from the payment account) instead of the "push" bill payment process (i.e., setting up the bill payment on the payee website to push payment to the biller). The pull payment process is the safest and most reliable method for ensuring that payments are received by the billers on the exact date that you want so there is never any issue or concern about getting hit with a late payment penalty. In most cases I set up them up as recurring bill pays for the full amount due on the scheduled due date so setting up the bill payment schedule is a 1X occurrence.

Harry2

I think I get it. I even have started using the code SCHPULL in the check number column. It is just that you now have umpteen methods of knowing whether the payment "worked". I first had a job and a bank account in 1962. Apart from one exception I have never authorized a periodic automatic variable Direct Debit. The exception was Compuserve, I think because you got these penny-anny charges. So I am reluctant to start variable periodic direct debits now. With all the sneaky fees that crop up, I want to check every bill. I guess I am just old fashioned, or maybe it was just growing up in England in the aftermath of WWII (while rationing was still in effect) and my dad was not generous with my pocket money.

Boatnmaniac

@Harry2 - Checking every bill is always the smart thing to do. I would not dream of making a payment without first reviewing it and checking for errors or other issues.

Setting up the automatic direct debits does not prevent you from reviewing the bills before the bills are paid. My billers email the bills to me or email me a notice that the bill is ready for review/download nearly a month before the payment due dates. That gives me at least 3 weeks to address anything unexpected in a bill, including changing the payment amount or even canceling the scheduled payment. I've been doing it this way for over 15 yrs now and have been very happy with the safety, reliability and flexibility of it.

Of course, it is a personal choice as to how you want to manage payment of your bills but I really think you might want to give it a try. Maybe start with just 1 or 2 bills to prove it out and get comfortable with it.

Harry2

The problem is that with bills like Comcast and to a lesser extent AT&T (both of which are Penalty bills) the information is presented in a way that does not lend itself to visual side by side comparison. If I were a business, I would no doubt be able to afford a tool that looks at 2 PDFs or 2 documents "as they come" and give me the deltas, assuming there was a truly generic way of doing that. I do it by not going paperless and using a pen.

Osmar

I'm migrating from the dreaded paytrust but at least all of my Credit cards can be paid via ACH payment. I'm trialling Quicken and I can't believe that they still using check payment instead of making a subsequent agreement to payee with ACH payment.

Isn't Quickpay an ACH type of payment to payee?

Harry2

The problem is conflict of interest. Payees want security of being paid on time. Payers (like me) want total transparency. Payees are quite happy for you not to be able to notice discrepancies, sneaky fee increases etc. It no longer suits financial institutions to do things the pre-summer- 2022 way. Quicken hasn't got the manpower to develop an "easy, reliable user interface that the banks would agree to. I used to design the software for Air Traffic Control systems, so I understand the software problem. It is the old old story. In whose interest is it to fix this?