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Ask HN: How do you pay your utility bills?

Interested in learning how/where individuals or businesses pay their essential monthly bills such as, Utilities, Rent, and Insurance? 1. How? Credit Card, Debit Card, Cash or Check. 2. Where? Biller Website, Through your Bank Account or others? 3. What are your current pain points, and what improvements would you like to see? 4. Auto payments. Yay or Nay? Especially interested in points 3 & 4.

aveedibya 6y ago
It varies by billers, and how much fee they charge on using cards. I prefer autopay for billers on their website where I can add credit card and forget it (for ex. telecom and internet bills). For others, such as electric or rent bills, I prefer to pay using ACH but cannot schedule auto pay as I want to make sure I have enough balance in my bank account before making a payment. Plus, ACH has risks of NSF from both sides, which I don't like. I have tried using my bank account to directly pay bills, but not super convenient.
- _megha_agarwal 6y ago
  That's a good point you bring up! In this day and age, there is no reason, a customer should have to pay overdraft fees. We always check our customer's bank accounts to make sure they have enough money to make their payments, and never make a charge if that is not the case. So we ensure there are no NSF fees from our side or your bank's. Also, our customers can pay Rent using our virtual credit line, so you won't have to worry about checking your bank balance each time.
- _megha_agarwal 6y ago
  Here's an interesting CNBC article that estimates late fees, overdrafts and even fraud cost Americans an extra $577 annually. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/us-households-spend-an-extra-577-dollars-annually-on-hidden-bill-costs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/us-households-spend-an-extra...
timeinput 6y ago
My preference is always auto pay, in preference order credit card, debit card, ACH. I only allow ACH access for my mortgage. I tend to use the merchants site to set it up, and allow them to draw. It would be nice if there was some kind of reach back where I could de-authorize these things with out interacting with each merchant.
- aveedibya 6y ago
  wow, I like your preference order thing... same for me CC seems to be most hassle-free, but then comes added fees with it for a lot of billers
  - timeinput 6y ago
    Yeah if there's an added fee I reach for debit or ACH, the points I get back on the CC purchase never pays back the transaction fee for bill payment.
    - aveedibya 6y ago
      that's true, because a CC gives you points from its processing fee, so your reward won't be more than processing or transaction fee that CC companies earn
- _megha_agarwal 6y ago
  That's interesting, thanks for sharing! We're building Neon, a one-stop bill pay solution for all your essential bills and hence, we're interested in learning what else can be done to improve user experience. Would you think a centralized dashboard where you can add your bills once, and then can control such things (like payment methods or bank account), help? For some added context, we provide a credit line at 0% APR and automate payments using that credit line. We also consolidate all bills in a centralized location, on our dashboard.
  - timeinput 6y ago
    The biggest reason I have my preference of CC first is points and to a lesser degree consumer protection. I'm guessing you couldn't let me use Amex as a middle man between me and your service and not charge some fee, and I have a feeling I (personally) wouldn't be all that interested as the overhead of bill payment isn't that high (for me as just one person). Not to say it isn't an issue for some. I definitely know it was when I was younger, but I'm not sure how much of that was how available online payment was at the time.
chris-orgmenta 6y ago
Hi Megha, I manage Accounts Payable for clients. >1. How? Credit Card, Debit Card, Cash or Check. EFT/Direct Debit > CC/DC manual/ACH/Wire Transfer > Check (US only)/Paypal/other expensive payment platforms. 2. Where? Biller Website, Through your Bank Account or others? Automatic payments > Manual batches through accounting package > Manual payment via phone/biller portal 3. What are your current pain points, and what improvements would you like to see? - Current clients: Biggest pain point is actually financial onboarding suppliers, e.g. verifying bank details / setting up direct debit etc. - Current clients: Credit requests / getting suppliers to make changes to their invoices can be laborious. - New Clients: Distributors such as Ingram Micro will place companies on stop credit as soon as one bill is overdue - Which seems to catch a lot of orgs off guard if they don't have a stable AP process in place. - New Clients: Three way match is rarely done. - New Clients: Often miss on-billing supplier costs. E.g. purchasing M365 licenses, provisioning them, paying them through AP, then forgetting to add them to a client agreement for invoicing. 4. Auto payments. Yay or Nay? Absolutely Yay, but they should still undergo a three (actually five) way match, and be 'approved' by the decision maker before being debited. --- I reviewed https://www.neonforlife.com/ https://www.neonforlife.com/ & https://medium.com/neonfinancial/neon-whats-all-the-fuss-about- https://medium.com/neonfinancial/neon-whats-all-the-fuss-abo... and I'm wondering: - You are pivoting from b2c to both b2c & b2b? Seems sensible, I can't imagine b2c being very lucrative. - For B2B, is it your 0% credit line that makes it worth using your dashboard instead of Xero/QBO/etc.? Or are there other benefits? - How are you monetising this? You are shouldering such massive risk here, surely you will get masses of late payments & defaults ... I really like that your B2C offering can prevent 'charging poor people for being poor'. Good on you
- _megha_agarwal 6y ago
  Hi Chris! Thanks for your detailed feedback. You have a ton of great insights on bills that businesses pay. To answer your questions - We started out, we intended to cover user's essential household bills only (rent, and utilities). But we had some early adopters add their business bills as well, and we decided we weren't going to turn them away. So as far as the bills fall in these categories - Rent, Electricity, Internet, Telecom, Water, Gas, Parking or HOA - we cover them both for businesses and consumers. We do not cover the type of B2B bills that businesses need an accounting software for. So we think, we can co-exist with the likes of QBO/Xero. We don't think that the B2C side is not lucrative enough, given in the absence of fair lending products users resort to Payday or other high cost loans. In numbers, Payday Lending is a $90B industry and 70% of those funds are used to cover a recurring household bill such as rent or utilities. That being said, our current users are definitely not the ones who are desperate for cash or just bad with finances (people often think that we’d be competing with the likes of early-pay or cash advance apps). That’s not true. Our users are actually fairly responsible and tech savvy. They might or might not have been affected by the pandemic, and are actually using credit line at 0% APR to spread out their bill payments but also, benefit from bill consolidation and automatic payments. Solopreneurs, small business owners, white-collar workers are the ones who are using us currently. How are you monetising this? You are shouldering such massive risk here, surely you will get masses of late payments & defaults ... We plan to monetize from businesses. Mostly through partnerships or transaction fees on payments processed through our platform. The intent is to look for value add services for our users, for ex: some users want to know how their bill amounts compare to others in the same area/demographics and get better deals. By showing relevant deals and helping businesses gain customers, we can earn revenue. However, these are just some preliminary ideas, we’re exploring. As for the risk, we’re thinking about it differently. Rather than profiling users as risky or not, we evaluate risk for transactions or payment types. Surely, essential bills are always top of mind for individuals, and likelihood on screwing those up is the least, even if you compare people across credit scores. That doesn’t mean that people will not default - there will be circumstances where people may not be able to pay even most essential ones, however, we are hoping that (most) people can recover from those circumstances. Our philosophy of avoiding interests and fees will keep overall debt levels lower, and hence, reduce time in which they can recover. We really appreciate your kind words. And yes, we’re not out there to exploit people. We believe people are more good than evil, and wealth is not the best way to judge a person’s willingness or ability to pay back. We just want to build the right products and incentives to help them be more responsible.

aveedibya 6y ago

It varies by billers, and how much fee they charge on using cards. I prefer autopay for billers on their website where I can add credit card and forget it (for ex. telecom and internet bills). For others, such as electric or rent bills, I prefer to pay using ACH but cannot schedule auto pay as I want to make sure I have enough balance in my bank account before making a payment. Plus, ACH has risks of NSF from both sides, which I don't like. I have tried using my bank account to directly pay bills, but not super convenient.

_megha_agarwal 6y ago
That's a good point you bring up! In this day and age, there is no reason, a customer should have to pay overdraft fees. We always check our customer's bank accounts to make sure they have enough money to make their payments, and never make a charge if that is not the case. So we ensure there are no NSF fees from our side or your bank's. Also, our customers can pay Rent using our virtual credit line, so you won't have to worry about checking your bank balance each time.
_megha_agarwal 6y ago
Here's an interesting CNBC article that estimates late fees, overdrafts and even fraud cost Americans an extra $577 annually. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/us-households-spend-an-extra-577-dollars-annually-on-hidden-bill-costs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/us-households-spend-an-extra...

timeinput 6y ago

My preference is always auto pay, in preference order credit card, debit card, ACH. I only allow ACH access for my mortgage. I tend to use the merchants site to set it up, and allow them to draw. It would be nice if there was some kind of reach back where I could de-authorize these things with out interacting with each merchant.

aveedibya 6y ago
wow, I like your preference order thing... same for me CC seems to be most hassle-free, but then comes added fees with it for a lot of billers
- timeinput 6y ago
  Yeah if there's an added fee I reach for debit or ACH, the points I get back on the CC purchase never pays back the transaction fee for bill payment.
  - aveedibya 6y ago
    that's true, because a CC gives you points from its processing fee, so your reward won't be more than processing or transaction fee that CC companies earn
_megha_agarwal 6y ago
That's interesting, thanks for sharing! We're building Neon, a one-stop bill pay solution for all your essential bills and hence, we're interested in learning what else can be done to improve user experience. Would you think a centralized dashboard where you can add your bills once, and then can control such things (like payment methods or bank account), help? For some added context, we provide a credit line at 0% APR and automate payments using that credit line. We also consolidate all bills in a centralized location, on our dashboard.
- timeinput 6y ago
  The biggest reason I have my preference of CC first is points and to a lesser degree consumer protection. I'm guessing you couldn't let me use Amex as a middle man between me and your service and not charge some fee, and I have a feeling I (personally) wouldn't be all that interested as the overhead of bill payment isn't that high (for me as just one person). Not to say it isn't an issue for some. I definitely know it was when I was younger, but I'm not sure how much of that was how available online payment was at the time.

chris-orgmenta 6y ago

Hi Megha, I manage Accounts Payable for clients. >1. How? Credit Card, Debit Card, Cash or Check. EFT/Direct Debit > CC/DC manual/ACH/Wire Transfer > Check (US only)/Paypal/other expensive payment platforms. 2. Where? Biller Website, Through your Bank Account or others? Automatic payments > Manual batches through accounting package > Manual payment via phone/biller portal 3. What are your current pain points, and what improvements would you like to see? - Current clients: Biggest pain point is actually financial onboarding suppliers, e.g. verifying bank details / setting up direct debit etc. - Current clients: Credit requests / getting suppliers to make changes to their invoices can be laborious. - New Clients: Distributors such as Ingram Micro will place companies on stop credit as soon as one bill is overdue - Which seems to catch a lot of orgs off guard if they don't have a stable AP process in place. - New Clients: Three way match is rarely done. - New Clients: Often miss on-billing supplier costs. E.g. purchasing M365 licenses, provisioning them, paying them through AP, then forgetting to add them to a client agreement for invoicing. 4. Auto payments. Yay or Nay? Absolutely Yay, but they should still undergo a three (actually five) way match, and be 'approved' by the decision maker before being debited. --- I reviewed https://www.neonforlife.com/ https://www.neonforlife.com/ & https://medium.com/neonfinancial/neon-whats-all-the-fuss-about- https://medium.com/neonfinancial/neon-whats-all-the-fuss-abo... and I'm wondering: - You are pivoting from b2c to both b2c & b2b? Seems sensible, I can't imagine b2c being very lucrative. - For B2B, is it your 0% credit line that makes it worth using your dashboard instead of Xero/QBO/etc.? Or are there other benefits? - How are you monetising this? You are shouldering such massive risk here, surely you will get masses of late payments & defaults ... I really like that your B2C offering can prevent 'charging poor people for being poor'. Good on you

_megha_agarwal 6y ago
Hi Chris! Thanks for your detailed feedback. You have a ton of great insights on bills that businesses pay. To answer your questions - We started out, we intended to cover user's essential household bills only (rent, and utilities). But we had some early adopters add their business bills as well, and we decided we weren't going to turn them away. So as far as the bills fall in these categories - Rent, Electricity, Internet, Telecom, Water, Gas, Parking or HOA - we cover them both for businesses and consumers. We do not cover the type of B2B bills that businesses need an accounting software for. So we think, we can co-exist with the likes of QBO/Xero. We don't think that the B2C side is not lucrative enough, given in the absence of fair lending products users resort to Payday or other high cost loans. In numbers, Payday Lending is a $90B industry and 70% of those funds are used to cover a recurring household bill such as rent or utilities. That being said, our current users are definitely not the ones who are desperate for cash or just bad with finances (people often think that we’d be competing with the likes of early-pay or cash advance apps). That’s not true. Our users are actually fairly responsible and tech savvy. They might or might not have been affected by the pandemic, and are actually using credit line at 0% APR to spread out their bill payments but also, benefit from bill consolidation and automatic payments. Solopreneurs, small business owners, white-collar workers are the ones who are using us currently. How are you monetising this? You are shouldering such massive risk here, surely you will get masses of late payments & defaults ... We plan to monetize from businesses. Mostly through partnerships or transaction fees on payments processed through our platform. The intent is to look for value add services for our users, for ex: some users want to know how their bill amounts compare to others in the same area/demographics and get better deals. By showing relevant deals and helping businesses gain customers, we can earn revenue. However, these are just some preliminary ideas, we’re exploring. As for the risk, we’re thinking about it differently. Rather than profiling users as risky or not, we evaluate risk for transactions or payment types. Surely, essential bills are always top of mind for individuals, and likelihood on screwing those up is the least, even if you compare people across credit scores. That doesn’t mean that people will not default - there will be circumstances where people may not be able to pay even most essential ones, however, we are hoping that (most) people can recover from those circumstances. Our philosophy of avoiding interests and fees will keep overall debt levels lower, and hence, reduce time in which they can recover. We really appreciate your kind words. And yes, we’re not out there to exploit people. We believe people are more good than evil, and wealth is not the best way to judge a person’s willingness or ability to pay back. We just want to build the right products and incentives to help them be more responsible.