Software Bill Pay

Pay bills through Quicken or Money

All the bill-paying services, naturally enough, handle bill payment. What some don't supply is a complete financial management system. Software programs fill this niche. CNet.com reviews Microsoft Money 2008 Deluxe (*est. $30) and Quicken 2008 Deluxe (*est. $60), both of which offer online bill paying. See our report on accounting software for a more in-depth discussion about these two programs.

With respect to online bill payment, Money 2008 lets users pay bills online through MSN Bill Pay for free for two years. MSN Bill Pay works like online bill payment from your bank. You can pay e-bills or pretty much anyone else once you set up the account. You can then track your bills and payments through the Money software. And you can set desktop alerts, get check images and create snapshots of bills or cash flow.

Quicken offers something similar, but you'll have to shell out money for its online bill-pay feature, called Quicken Bill Pay (*est. $10 per month for up to ten bills). Your bills and payments can be managed with the software, and a redesigned home page lets you see a running transaction history and balance information. You can also attach documents, display cash flow and monitor upcoming bills. Quicken also works with over 5,300 online financial institutions, including PayPal. You can now also make payments online via Quicken using your iPhone.

Both software titles are overkill if you are only looking to pay bills online, but if you already own this software or want to manage your finances as a whole, they are worth a look. You might want to check to be sure your bank supports downloading information into Quicken and Money first -- most major banks do.