Pay Your Recurring Bills Every Month Using Your Credit Cards

Entrepreneurs hail from hundreds of disparate cities, industries and backgrounds, but one thing they have in common is an appreciation for plastic. Paying by credit cards is convenient, it allows business owners to maximize their cash flow, and it offers the accumulation of rewards or points that can add up to thousands in free services each year. For regularly recurring bills, however, nothing beats the convenience of automatic bill payment with credit cards, the kind typically offered online through consumer and business checking accounts.

Now, paying recurring bills automatically by credit cards, which offers the best of both worlds, is catching on big with small businesses. Over the past two years, New York City-based American Express has seen its charge volume for automatic bill pay for small-business customers grow by 30% per year, says an official American Express. The company sees it as a way to replace check-writing, with added benefits. It helps [business owners] consolidate spending on the credit cards and lets them better track and manage cash flow.

American Express and its rivals in credit cards market, MasterCard and Visa, have all developed sophisticated online reporting tools to enable users to keep track of expenses and slice and dice them for budget purposes. Looking at a monthly or quarterly statement, business owners can see how much they're spending on utilities or subscriptions, or on overnight deliveries, say officials of global product development at MasterCard International in Purchase, New York. That can potentially help with negotiation with vendors when it comes to rate reduction.

Experts say, convenience and the consolidation of expenses were the key reasons to sign up for automated bill payment through credit cards with half a dozen recurring vendors. For example, a small company that employs only four full-time people but boasts several high-profile clients, and they only has part-time financial help from controller and bookkeeper. So, for companies like this, anything that can save time is worthwhile. This minimizes the paperwork. Time is money, and writing checks costs money. Then again, credit can cost money, too, if balances are allowed to slide. One finance charge or late penalty can erase a month's benefits of credit cards use, so it's only worth doing if the balance is paid in full each month. In an effort to minimize debt, many entrepreneurs are turning to debit or check credit cards instead, which offer a lot of the same benefits.

There's an overall concern about accumulated debt among small-business owners, says a senior officer of Visa USA in San Francisco. She notes that business credit spending is up, but Visa has seen both business credit and debit growing by double digits over the past few years. Business owners can sign up for automatic bill pay with Visa and earn points or rewards through the Visa check card, just as they would with credit cards. And through its online reporting tool, Visa Information Source Select, launched this past summer, entrepreneurs can view all their credit and signaturebased debit transaction information in one place.

One of the best ways to build a positive credit standing is to pay your bills on time. Building a history of prompt account payments shows lenders that you are a responsible borrower and gives them the reassurance to lend or extend a line of credit to you. In the same regard, late payments on your credit accounts can lower your credit score. But even if you have a poor credit history, or no credit history, the fastest way to get lenders and creditors singing praises of your credit standing is to make those payments on time -- every time with the help of automatically paid bills using your credit cards.

With no checks to write, no stamps to buy, now, you can have your bills paid automatically with your credit cards. You can charge your taxes either by telephone or Internet through a credit card processing service provider. This service will allow taxpayers to charge their taxes at no expense to the Township. A convenience fee will be charged to the taxpayer and will be clearly disclosed to the cardholder before completing the credit card transaction. You select Automatic Bill Payment for paying cell company's bill, your credit card will be charged on the payment due date of your bill. For those who want to pay everything automatically using their credit cards, the wait will be a little bit longer. The list of merchants set up to handle automatic bill payment is certainly growing, but it's only a fraction of the vendors out there that business owners have to pay each month.