FWIW, I prefer to pay bills with my bank’s bill-pay system. I schedule payments (always one-shot, never recurring) for a particular date, and the bank does a wire transfer between accounts on the scheduled date. This includes my credit cards, mortgage and some utilities.
For payees that aren’t in the bank’s system, it will print and mail a cheque, but I choose to not use that feature. For those payees, I’d rather hand-write and mail a cheque myself.
I generally send these bills by dropping them into a blue USPS mailbox (not always the one at the post office). My town hasn’t had any incidents of theft from mailboxes, but we do have some incompetent drivers who (I suspect) have misplaced mail from time to time, leading to late delivery.
I try to avoid authorizing any third parties to directly debit anything from my bank accounts. The only real exceptions to this (all implemented as ACH payments) are:
My life insurance. It was initially set up this way and I never got around to switching it.
Federal and state income tax payments - which are one-shot payments that I schedule as required.
Rarely, state or local government payments (e.g. car registration), also as one-shot payments.
For a long time now, all my recurring bills are set up as autopay from the payee end. Originally they were all ACH/EFT unless the payee only supported credit cards. Recently I changed to use credit cards except when not supported, to get the cash back. And I’ll switch the credit card to get more, such as this quarter Discover gives 5% back on streaming services.
I used to write checks for one-shot payments, but not anymore. The cost of a stamp is more than the interest you earn on the float.
I’ve never had a problem with the ACH payments. However, I absolutely will not give PayPal access to my bank.
I tend to pay manually from the bank website. Even for things like my church donations, which I used to pay by hand-delivered check, I use the bank’s service. (I started during Covid and saw no reason to go back.)
The only things I have set on autopay are my phone service (because I get a $10/ line/ month discount for autopay) and my HOA (because it’s due every three months and it’s easier to set up autopay than to keep track myself of which month it’s due).
I generally avoid autopay under the theory that if I get hit by a bus or something – causing my income to cease while leaving me unable to take action – I’d rather have my bills go unpaid than have my bank account drained.
I do use autopay for exactly that reason, to guard against the chaos caused by the same “hit by a bus” possibility. It gives my executors some breathing space to organize my affairs before the utilities are cut off. Of course I do have to make sure there is always enough in my bank account to cover a few payments, despite loss of income. My “when I die” records also include information about what bills are being paid, and how to deal with them.
Their reasoning is that a regular check reveals, in addition to your name, address, and financial institution, also your account and routing number. Now if that check went only to the intended recipient, that may be OK. But, as my bank keeps telling me, 5% of all mailed checks never reach the intended recipient and instead are intercepted by a malevolent party. And those guys you certainly don’t want getting your details.
The advantage of the bank’s system with mailing checks is that they don’t actually mail a check. At least not the type you and I have at home that we got from our banks. They mail, well actually their contracted supplier mails something that resembles a check, but it does not reveal your financial institution or your account/routing details. Instead it contains a one-time token that allows that supplier to carry out these payments by connecting the recipient’s bank details (when they cash that “check”) with yours since they, and only they, have your information and used that to generate the one-time token (a bit similar to what Apple Pay uses when you use your phone to pay at a checkout terminal instead of taking out a debit card).
In theory, a fraudulent interceptor should not be able to cash that check since it was never made out to them. But even if they’d retain it for other purposes, they gain no relevant information since that one-time token is useless by itself. Unlike, your raw account and routing number details. It’s a nice idea. And, at least with my bank and the supplier they use, the system has worked well for me for many years. In fact, the very reason we started using their system was that a 5-figure check my wife had made out to a business partner was actually intercepted while being USPS mailed and that fraudster was even able to cash it. We eventually got our money back, but it was an ordeal and because she had used a regular check that had all the relevant information and that was now in the hands of a fraudster, the bank closed down the account and she had to set up a whole new account with all that came with that. It was a massive pain. That wouldn’t have happened had she used the bank’s mailed check system.
Just want to add that the “send a check” process varies by payment service provider. It actually is pretty traditional behind the scenes a lot of the time. In these cases, the recipient receives a check that is drawn upon an account owned by the bill pay service through the mail. Essentially, it is the same as if the bank mailed a cashier’s check, purchased by the sender, to the recipient.
For anybody interested in knowing more, most banks and credit unions use a third party provider for bill pay. A big player in this space is Fiserv. So when a bank customer uses the paper check option to send a payment, the sender’s bank takes the money out of the sender’s account, the money is transmitted to (very likely) Fiserv, and Fiserv cuts a check and mails it to the recipient.
As noted above, this process shields the sender’s bank details from the recipient—and others. That’s a good thing.
An amusing note: one month we had a lot of expenses and one credit card bill came in a bit over $10,000. When I went to do online bill pay, the bank website informed me that they couldn’t do an electronic payment for that amount and had to send a paper check instead. Shortly thereafter, I got a potential fraud alert from my bank, asking me to verify that I’d written a check for that amount to that credit card company. While I had not actually written or signed such a check, I realized that the correct answer was “yes”, as the alternative would have been to find out what happens when a large check to the credit card company bounces. So apparently the algorithm that says “this check is large, you should verify that it is real” doesn’t talk to the part of the bank’s records that could say “yes, we wrote this check ourselves at the customer’s request”.
I had something similar years ago when buying my current home.
We initially took out a very large mortgage, and then after our old home sold, we paid most of the proceeds from that sale to the new mortgage. The amount was about $550K.
We used the bill-pay system, since the payment was bank-to-bank, but the system couldn’t process an amount greater than $100,000. So we put it through as five payments of $99,000, followed by a sixth for the remainder. That went through just fine.
More banking geek stuff: $10,000 is a magic number in the US because it’s the amount that triggers reporting federal government reporting requirements. So banks often like to slow things down on “big” transactions. And ACH transfers can theoretically be up to $1,000,000 but most institutions place lower limits.
For anybody interested (probably nobody, ha), here’s more info:
It is worth taking a look at the limits associated with your various accounts, especially your checking account. In some cases, the bank’s limits can be higher or lower than you expect. In some cases, banks allow you to set your own limits, at least up to a certain amount.
It’s better to know the limits in advance before writing a big check, and it can be worthwhile to notify a bank in advance if you expect an unusually large transaction to occur.
Indeed it is. It’s also the limit for assets being brought into the country from abroad. If you’re traveling back home and you have more than $10,000 on you (or in your luggage), you’re required to declare that.
David C. said “… I’d rather hand-write and mail a cheque myself.”
Simon said: “My bank strongly advises against doing this.” And he provided many reasons to quit sending checks through the mail.
My story:
For years I used TurboTax to do my income taxes.
For many years it all worked very well.
TurboTax would suggest that I pre-pay next years’ taxes.
TurboTax would facilitate this by printing four statements to be mailed to the IRS on the four dates during the coming year.
I’d write a check and mail each check with its statement on the appropriate date.
One year (I think it was Tax Year 2023) I thought I’d use my bank’s electronic system to send the four payments, on the appropriate dates, to the IRS.
In due time the IRS sent me a letter saying I had not paid all of my pre-pay taxes – they had not received the second of the four payments – and I owed the amount for the missing payment, plus penalty fee.
I replied with a letter explaining. Several letters went back and forth between me and the IRS. They kept asking for 60 more days to analyze the problem. And, to be “safe” from the U. S. Government, I went ahead and paid (by writing a check) that missing quarter’s amount, plus the penalty fee.
Meanwhile, the bank’s records clearly showed the payment in question, and the other three payments that were not in question, were all deposited to the United States Treasury.
By now, I am pretty sure I will never hear anything from the IRS about that missing payment.
I went back to writing paper checks and mailing them in with the TurboTax-produced paper statements.
Even though I agree with Simon’s reasons to stop sending paper checks in the mail.
What to do with my upcoming taxes, which I’ll probably figure out with the help of TurboTax? I’m not sure.
But I hate putting paper checks in the mail.
Well, if they have to file a report to let Washington know that I paid for my home with the proceeds from selling my previous home, so be it. I’m sure there are millions of such reports every year.
Here’s the IRS’s Direct Pay home page:
It can be used for pesonal tax payments and business payments under $10M. (For larger payments, then EFTPS or same-day-wire must be used.)
I’ve used Direct Pay for several years now. So I can schedule all four estimated tax payments right away and not have to think about it again until next year.
I’m a long-time user of EFTPS and haven’t ever had a problem using it or with its services.
ETA: looks like EFTPS is being phased out. Something I strongly dislike about the IRS Online Account for Individuals is that it requires use of a small private company, ID.me, for signups and logins. So I’ll be using IRS Direct Pay.
Effective October 17th, 2025, Individuals will not be able to create new enrollments via EFTPS.gov. If you are an individual taxpayer and are not enrolled in EFTPS.gov by October 17th, you’ll need to create an IRS Online Account for Individuals or use the IRS Direct Pay guest path.
If you are already enrolled in EFTPS.gov to make your individual tax payments you will still be able to make payments; however, it is encouraged you transition to IRS Online Account for Individuals or IRS Direct Pay. All individuals will be required to transition from EFTPS.gov later in 2026.
Regarding the comments by Simon regarding using your bank or credit union’s online bill pay to pay a payee by paper check, what they said about the third-party payment provider using their own (or the bank’s) account number in lieu of your own, this is probably only the case for –at best – maybe half of the financial institutions offering the service.
In my experience, most generate paper checks that do include the consumer’s actual account number. How do I know? Well, I have opened checking accounts at numerous institutions in recent years. I often use their online bill pay to send myself a payment (as I am most certainly not in the system as a recognized payee). And probably 80% of the resulting paper checks mailed to me end up showing my actual account number on the check. So either I’m incredibly unlucky in the institutions I’ve chosen, or a very substantial proportion of the payment providers do not offer the feature of keeping your account numbers off the paper checks and safely kept private.
Another topic mentioned above was by someone who had very unfortunate results using their bank’s online bill payment service to send payments to the IRS. Here’s what I know about that: in reading the (admittedly onerous) terms and conditions for banks’ bill payment services, I think every single one I’ve seen explicitly advises against using their service for making government payments (like taxes). I’ve never understood or known WHY they say this, but I’ve always followed their advice and used other ways to pay these.
It’s very hard for me to believe that anyone would actually prefer to pay a bill with a check in this day and age - unless the circumstances require it. My former landlord required a check (handed to him in person) because he had nothing else set up for payment. But every other bill payment or invoice was and continues to be paid by me online. Sending almost anything via USPS mail nowadays is very risky, and I’ve had countless packages ridiculously rerouted or lost/damaged by them.
Our dentist’s office requires payment before you leave and if we pay by check, we get a 5% discount. But of course that’s not mailed
I still pay my local property tax bills by mailed check, because they also tack on an online processing fee (even if you give them ACH payment details.)
I can’t remember the last time I had a payment lost in the mail.
Just about everything else gets paid online. Most utility, etc., payments are from my bank’s website. Credit card payments I do on the website for each credit card. I pay the IRS and state taxes at their websites. Both of them allow me to schedule a payment and take the payment by ACH from my bank. I do try to avoid sending check payments to entities that are not directly paid by the bank, though (in other words, the bank mails a check) because I’ve had one or two experiences where the recipient didn’t see the info about name and account and did not credit the payment. However, I do have one recipient (health insurance) that is paid that way.
I have some friends who don’t do Venmo or PayPal, and Ill send them a check to reimburse for shared expenses.
This is a pet peeve of mine. I refuse to pay for the privilege of making another company’s job easier.
My state’s car registration was like this for a long time: they charged an extra fee for an online payment, instead of processing a mailed check. You have to know it was costing them more to handle the check.
Finally they saw the light and switched it, so now the extra charge is for payment by check.
(This is the same reason I won’t pay for TSA PreCheck)
As I said regarding having to use a check, “unless the circumstances require it” and you have some of those. I had only one.
I had a check from my attorney to me get lost in the mail. So it really does happen, even if you aren’t subject to USPS mailbox theft. I would not allow the attorney to resend the check and instead arranged to meet him in person to collect it.