BMO - can you use bill pay through Quicken

eppa19

Does BMO support bill pay through Quicken? My bank, Bank of the West, was purchased by BMO and the transition is happening this weekend. Looks like BMO might not support bill pay through Quicken, I am trying to verify this with existing BMO customers. Can anyone help? I used bill pay for the last 15 plus years with Quicken, looks like I might need to switch banks? Thank you for any assistance.

Steve

PS I tried calling BMO, however they are not picking up this weekend due to the migration of all their accounts.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @eppa19,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community. If you are connected to Bank of the West by Direct Connect (To verify that, go to Tools>Account List, click the Edit button next to the account, then click on the Online Services tab) and you are using Quicken to send bill payment instructions to your bank, then based on this article, which lists all the financial institutions that support Bank Bill Pay through Quicken, BMO does not offer that.

If you are using Quicken Bill Manager to send bill payments (that would be QuickPay or CheckPay), then which financial institution your payment account is with does not matter as much since the payments are handled by a third party. This article provides more information about Quicken Bill Manager.

I hope this helps!

UKR

If your bank (the one that runs your checking account) recently required you to reauthorize your checking account and/or your bank has changed from "Direct Connect" to either "Express Web Connect" or "Express Web Connect+" you can no longer use Online Bill Pay direct to the bank or Quicken Bill Manager's Quick Pay function. The bank no longer supports this function through Quicken.

IMHO, you have these alternatives (in no particular order of preference):

1. Use Quicken Bill Manager's Check Pay making sure to submit payment early enough (at least 3 weeks before due date) to allow time for delivery and processing. Note: limited number of free transactions per month.
2. Logon to the bank's website and schedule your bill pay payments to be executed by the bank from your checking account. In parallel to that, in Quicken use a regular Scheduled Reminder to record your payment. Repeat both actions every time another payment is due.
3. Bypass Bill Manager. Let the biller's computer system do all the work for you. Logon to the biller's website once and set up their Autopay, APS, Direct debit, etc. service to make the current payment and all future payments on Due Date directly from your checking account. In parallel to that, in Quicken, every month, record a regular Scheduled Reminder to keep track of your payments before they come due.
4. Write (or print with Quicken) a paper check and mail it to the biller, making sure to mail payment early enough (at least 10 days before due date) to allow time for delivery and processing.

I've been using method #3 for decades, since before the Internet and transaction download capabilities were even introduced. It's easy to get used to this process. And I have yet to miss a single payment.

kcullar

I also had Bank of the West, which is now BMO. I hate the new way of paying bills Quicken instituted a few years ago because it keeps losing connections to my payees and I have to log in again, so when the online center began letting me pay bills through the Online Center again I was thrilled. Now I've created a new account for BMO and the Online Center is only good for updating, not paying bills. It does look like I can pay them through the Bills & Income tab, though, even through the connection is Express Web Connect. I haven't tried it because the connection to most of the payees on my list stopped working some time ago. It's very frustrating. The old way of paying bills was so much easier and didn't require logging in to every payee account. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.