The natural gas provider. The electricity provider. The local water utility. Phone. Internet. Municipal taxes. The bank. Credit cards.

They all want to stop sending a bill via snail mail every month. Instead, “to protect the environment”, they want to bill electronically.

I used to be enthusiastic about “e-statements". I’m a nerd! I love the environment! Go ahead and email me about my bill instead of sticking some paper in the mail! I can handle it!

But here’s the thing: getting your bill electronically sucks. And I have little hope that there’s any way to improve it.

Fit Into This System

I’m a grown-ass man. I own a house, and I’m responsible for managing my family’s finances. So I’ve built a system that’s worked really well for me. It’s based on the Finder on my Mac.

Every bill provider gets a folder, and I arrange the bills by date. There’s a separate folder called Pending Items, where the bills are named by their due date.

So this is super-important: I need the bill as a nicely-saved PDF. Bill comes in the mail, I scan it with my Epson FastFoto 640, and I file it away.

Here’s why electronic bills suck.

1. You get an email saying a bill is available. Of course, it doesn’t contain an attachment with the bill; that’d be a security nightmare.
2. You log into the service provider’s web site. Sometimes the email has a link directly to the login page. Sometimes they don’t. It’s maddening.
3. You search around the site for the location of the bill. It’s almost never right there. Sometimes it’s really well hidden.
4. Now you can download and file the PDF.

It’s too many steps! And frankly, knowing the average person’s patience for using a computer, it feels like an overwhelming undertaking.

Solution Time

Ahh, I wish. This is the hardest part. What possible method exists to smooth this experience? You can’t just get an email attachment; email’s too insecure to trust. Years ago, Canada Post had an ePost service that was meant to be a one-stop shop for your bills. It was both too early and too awkward.

If there were a single trusted service provider that collated your bills into a single account, that’d obviate a lot of these issues. But I’m not holding my breath that such a thing will appear.

I suspect that most people, moved by default into electronic billing, don’t bother downloading the bills at all. Perhaps all that matters is the due date and the amount.

But I love my system. I take a perverse pleasure in going back to bills from decades past, seeing what cable TV used to cost me. Or electricity!

And so I’m going to continue insisting that companies mail me a bill, so I can dutifully scan and file it. At least until I no longer have that option.