Autopay

Autopay takes the due date out of your memory and leaves it in your account. The biller charges the card or debits the checking account you gave it on the day the bill is due, at the bill's amount or the amount you chose, and the payment is on time every month as long as the money is there. Autopay moves the risk from forgetting the date to funding the account, a better risk to carry, and the reason the bills that go on it are the ones with a known amount and a trusted biller. It pays the bill; it does not read it.

In a sentence

• "The car payment is on autopay from checking on the 16th, and it has not been late in three years."
• "We set the card to autopay the full $412 statement balance, not the $35 minimum."
• "Autopay pays the bill on time. It does not check whether the amount is right."

How it works

1. You give the biller a payment method and an instruction: a checking account, which it debits as an ACH transfer, or a card, plus what to pay and on which day.
2. The biller states the amount ahead of the debit, on the statement or by email, usually a week or two before.
3. On the date, the biller pulls the payment. It posts as on time whatever the hour, because the biller initiated it.
4. If the account cannot cover it, the payment is returned. The bank may charge a returned-payment fee, the biller a late fee, and repeated failures can end the autopay.
5. You read what landed, once a week, against what was expected, which is where a price increase, a wrong amount and a failed pull are caught.

On a credit card the instruction has a third part, what to pay, and it is the setting that matters most: the minimum keeps the account current and carries the rest of the balance at interest, the statement balance clears it and keeps the grace period, and a fixed amount does one or the other depending on the month.

An example

Six bills from one household, and what autopay is set to do with each.

Checking has to hold $1,400 before the 1st and $1,082 before the 16th, at the electric bill's usual $140, and the water bill is the one that still needs a hand. The card's statement, a month of groceries, fuel and subscriptions, is settled in full on the 24th, and that setting decides whether the card costs anything: at the $35 minimum the other $377 would carry into the next cycle, where thirty days at a 24.99% APR, the example's rate, would add about $7.74 of interest and lose the grace period on every new purchase until the balance was paid in full.

Why it matters

Autopay decides which bills get your attention. For the fixed bills the whole risk was the missed date, and autopay removes it, the late fee with it. The attention that frees belongs on the two things autopay cannot do. It cannot tell a right amount from a wrong one, so a medical bill, a disputed charge and the first bill from a new biller stay by hand, and a price that stepped up arrives on autopay for a year unless what landed is read. And it cannot put money in the account, so every autopay points at an account funded before the bills come due; a pull against an empty account costs a fee from the bank and a fee from the biller on the same day.

Autopay versus bill pay from the bank

Autopay is a pull and bill pay is a push. With autopay, the biller has your account details and takes the amount of the bill on the due date, so a bill that varies is paid in full without a change on your side; stopping it means telling the biller and, if the debits continue, your bank. With bill pay, you tell your bank to send a set amount on a date you chose, so you control the amount and the timing, but a bill that rose is underpaid until you change the instruction, and the payment can take days to arrive. The difference is who decides the amount. See Which bills to put on autopay, and which to pay by hand.

Common questions

Should I autopay the minimum or the statement balance on a credit card? The statement balance. The purchases were spending on the days they happened, so the money is in checking waiting for the statement, and paying in full keeps the grace period so no interest is charged. If a balance is being paid down over time, autopay at least the minimum on the due date and pay the rest by hand. See Minimum payment.

What happens if an autopay fails? The payment is returned, the bank may charge a returned-payment fee, the biller may charge a late fee, and repeated failures can cancel the autopay. Pay by hand the day you see it, ask the biller to waive the fee because the autopay failed, and fix the cause, usually an account that ran short, an expired card or a changed amount.

Can I stop an autopay? Yes. Cancel it with the biller, in the account settings or in writing, and if a debit still arrives, ask your bank to block further debits from that biller, giving it a few business days. A subscription's autopay ends when the subscription is cancelled.

Go deeper

• Which bills to put on autopay, and which to pay by hand applies the rule to a worked list of twelve bills.
• How to stop missing due dates without thirty calendar reminders sets up the one funded account, the clustered due dates and reminders only for the bills that need a hand.
• What happens when you pay a bill late, from grace periods to late fees prices the thresholds autopay keeps you inside.

Where it shows up in Zypper

Zypper is the weekly read of what autopay did. Each bill is identified automatically as a recurring group from the pattern of your transactions, with its frequency, its next expected payment and amount, and its status, so a pull that landed at the usual amount, one that landed larger and one that did not land at all are each visible against what was expected, and a payment expected but not seen reads as overdue. The Upcoming payment expected notification emails you before an expected payment. On the budget page, a bill in a spending category counts as money already spoken for in the month it is due, before the charge arrives, and shows as Expected, Paid or Late in its category's panel. See Recurring transactions and bill tracking and Recurring bills in your budget for the details, or get started with Zypper to see what landed this week.