If you pay almost all your bills via electronic banking, do you still need to balance your "checkbook"?

Similar questions: pay bills electronic banking balance checkbook.

Balancing your checkbook is soooo old school I think doing online banking eliminates most of the need to balance a checkbook. The only thing you need to be careful of is writing checks above the value of your bank account. Thus, bouncing the checks.

Since you do most of your payments online as well, I gotta think it would be okj to ditch the checkbook. I have my account set up to roll over to my credit card in that case so even then I'm ok. I haven't balanced a checkbook in 5 years.

Banking has gotten so much easier with the internet.

Not really... First off, I'm an Accountant, so I have no excuse to ever let my account overdraw. Here's what I do: Essentially, everything I buy, I put on the Discover Card if I can. I get the best cash back awards there, and I have the highest liit there.

But some places don't take Discover, so... I have a Target Visa, so I can get occassional 10% off my purchase rewards certificates, so I'll get these 3 or 4 times a year and if I have a ton of stuff to buy, I'll go wild. But some places don't take credit cards, so... I'll generally use cash. I'll take out a couple hundred bucks at a time maybe once or twice a month, and I'll use my cash for lunches and things that are generally under $10 where it's not worth the hassle of doing a card.

Only RARELY, will there be an occassion where I HAVE to write a check. I can log onto the websites for Discover and Target Visa to submit my payments...they happen on the same day every month and I pay my bill in full. I have a car payment that is set up to pay directly from my bank account, so my bank knows it's coming.

I have one credit card I carry a balance on, I log into that site to submit an on line payment on the same date each month. Any utilities or services such as phone, cable, water, trash, etc. That I can charge to a credit card, I have set to go to one of my credit cards, so it gets paid when I pay my balance in full each month.My power bill has to be paid direclty out of my bank account, but it's averaged so it comes out on the same date, each month, and is about the same amount each month. My mortgage I go in to the mortgage company site each month and pay that on the same day each month and in the same amount.

I get paid once a month, it's the same amount (I do the payroll anyway), so I know what's going in. I use an internet only bank and I have a savings account and a money market, I can move money on the fly or schedule funds to transfer from account to account on dates I select. So, at the beginning of each month, I look at what is in my account, I write down the balance and I write down the five payments that are coming out...Mortgage, Discover, Target Visa, Car Payment, Chase Credit Card and the dates that go with them.

I do this after I schedule each payment online (that isn't already automatically set by my bank), so I know the amount and date. I take the first date first, subtract it out from the balance with my payroll added in. If I get to any date where I'm going to go under 0, I set up an auto transfer from my money market into the checking account.

I factor in once or twice a month that I'm going to take cash out, figure abotu when I'm going to do it and make sure that I won't ever overdraft.So, one day a month, generally about the 1st or so, I'll know what all my ins and outs are for the next 30 days, and I only have to think about it that one day. Then if I do unexpectedly write a check, I just have to see how that's going to impact my calculations. So, do I keep a register and reconcile it...no!

But I sure know how much money I'm going to have on any given date. But what is there to reconcile when everything's electronic...there's what's there now, and there's what's going to be there at some future point. You don't reconcile to what your balance is going to be even if you do write a lot of checks...my reconciliation is my balance because there's nothing pending..

I haven't balanced the checkbook for 3 or 4 years I write maybe one or two checks a year - generally to family members graduating high school or college. Everything else is via my bank's Online Banking application. Rent, Gas/Electric, telephone, celphone, cable/internet, everything.

There is no longer any need to have to balance the checkbook. All of my purchases with my debit card, payments via online banking, and the few checks I write, all show up on Online Banking within a few hours of being processed. The online banking application does all of the balancing for me - it shows how much each charge was and what my balance is after each transaction.

I can't speak for any other bank, but the one I use is Bank of America. Sources: personal experience .

I think it's a good idea You just don't have to keep it on paper. Quicken or Money will both do a good job of this for you, in most cases downloading directly from your bank to keep you up to date. If you can't afford them or don't want to pay for them, a simple spreadsheet is more than adequate as a check register.

You just need the right formula in the "running balance" column. Suppose Column F is where you put deposits, G is where you put withdrawals/payments, and column H is your running total. Make H2's formula (have to start on the second line) =H1+F2-G2 Then select the entire H column and hit Edit->Fill->Down.

Bam! You now have an electronic check register for free, because you almost certainly got a spreadsheet program with your computer. (If not, go get OpenOffice.Org from http://www.openoffice.org/.

It's free and excellent. ) There are a few reasons this is still important. First, it will still often take time for some checks to clear, and getting used to e-payments just means it's easier to lose track of the ones you still pay by hand.

The register is also a reminder of payments that you're supposed to be making but have forgotten amount - did you misplace that electric bill that still comes by paper? Second, keeping track of things this way makes it much easier to categorize items for tax time. I don't know what country you live in, but in the USA deductions are a way of life for many people.

At tax time, you can copy your spreadsheet and sort by category, or run reports in Quicken/Money, to figure out your total deductions in each area in just a few minutes, without trudging through a box of receipts. Electronic bank records are OK as backups, but not for tax purposes. I don't know about your bank, but when mine says "NIANTIC GA 05/20 #1711265355 WITHDRWL 262..." _I_ don't remember if that was for movies and snacks, or if it was the cash I was giving to my church that weekend.

Last, but certainly not least, if you ever do any budgeting, it helps to have a clear idea of what you spend on a regular basis. Some items, like car payments, are reliable, and thus easy, but do you ACCURATELY know what you spend on groceries each month? Our number changes every month - a dog, two cats, two growing boys, and us somehow can't agree on a number to the penny that makes sense.

So, we can take a year's records, or six months, in that category, and average it per month to figure out whether we're spending a reasonable amount. If our goal is to cut $40 a month from that section, it gives us a much better idea of how we're doing when we look back..

I have just started doing this with most of our bills I write them in the check register with all the rest of the checks and credit or debit purchases. They must be sutracted from your balance just like anything else. I used to love balancing my checkbook.

That was long ago, before the debit card and all the transactions. I was always used to finding the error(s) so easily if it didn't come out to the penny! Now, with so many more transactions, it's much more difficult to me and very frustrating.My husband always leaves the house when the bank statement comes!

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Am I overreacting here?

I am looking for a fabric origami pattern for a checkbook. Is there a site where I could pay and copy it online?

I am trying to pay off some bills. Which bills should I pay down first?

Electronic banking question. Am I overreacting here?

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