Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

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Gort
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Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Gort »

Friends,
What are your thoughts concerning using paperless statements from your bank for checking accounts? I currently get a paper copy mailed to me monthly (I've been doing this for 40 years without a problem). For those of you who switched to paperless statements, do you like them? Is it convenient for you when reconciling your account? Is it secure or perhaps more secure than getting a mailed copy?
Thanks much,
Gort
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Duckie
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Duckie »

Gort wrote:For those of you who switched to paperless statements, do you like them? Is it convenient for you when reconciling your account? Is it secure or perhaps more secure than getting a mailed copy?
I've been using paperless statements for 10 years. They're just as easy to reconcile as paper. PDFs take up less room so they're easy to store. (You could always print them out if you wanted to.) And they're definitely more secure because you don't have to worry about them getting lost in the postal system.
TravelforFun
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by TravelforFun »

No more hard copies for me. Bank, financial, insurance statements are all electronic now.
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GerryL
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by GerryL »

As far as my credit union is concerned I'm paperless, but I like to reconcile my accounts manually so I print out the statement each month and mark it up. Do the same quarterly with my investment accounts. Some banks now charge for mailing statements so might as well get used to it -- or plan to pay.
DualIncomeNoDebt
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by DualIncomeNoDebt »

Paper is dead.

It was dead ten years ago when both the IRS and the SEC required corporations over a fairly small size to electronically file their returns and their quarterly/annual disclosures. No paper allowed.

Been dead even longer in the federal courts; since the mid-90s chambers have been able to access entire dockets electronically. Same thing with caselaw and treatises, using Lexis/Westlaw. And now, in almost every jurisdiction you're required to file your documents electronically, both state and federal, unless it would cause you hardship.

If electronic documents are good enough for the IRS, for the SEC, and for the state and federal courts for documents with far more import, complexity and heft than a simple checking account statement, you can deal.
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Steelersfan
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Steelersfan »

I'm one who generally favors paper statements, which I have continued to receive for my investments at two mutual funds.

But I let my bank monthly statement go paperless several years ago. It's been fine and I have no desire to go back.
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Crimsontide
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Crimsontide »

Save the trees, stop printing all those statements... Electronic versions are the way to go.
sscritic
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by sscritic »

DualIncomeNoDebt wrote:
If electronic documents are good enough for the IRS,
Which is why the IRS uses emails rather than paper memos for internal documents. Electronic records such as emails can easily be stored and retrieved at any time. :)
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Crimsontide
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Crimsontide »

sscritic wrote:
DualIncomeNoDebt wrote:
If electronic documents are good enough for the IRS,
Which is why the IRS uses emails rather than paper memos for internal documents. Electronic records such as emails can easily be stored and retrieved at any time. :)
Priceless...
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cheese_breath
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by cheese_breath »

GerryL wrote:As far as my credit union is concerned I'm paperless, but I like to reconcile my accounts manually so I print out the statement each month and mark it up. Do the same quarterly with my investment accounts. Some banks now charge for mailing statements so might as well get used to it -- or plan to pay.
I also reconcile my accounts manually, and I prefer to have the financial institutions shoulder the cost of the ink and paper for printing the statements. (I know the customers eventually pay all their expenses, but even if I did go paperless they wouldn't give me a better deal.) If/when they charging me for the statements, then I'll probably switch to paperless and print them out myself.
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
sscritic
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by sscritic »

cheese_breath wrote: I also reconcile my accounts manually, and I prefer to have the financial institutions shoulder the cost of the ink and paper for printing the statements. (I know the customers eventually pay all their expenses, but even if I did go paperless they wouldn't give me a better deal.)
I am with cheese_breath. I would like to thank all of you paperless people for paying for my ink and paper. As a boglehead, I always appreciate when other people shoulder my costs for me.
Sidney
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Sidney »

For the bank we have been paperless for a while. Most of our transactions go on one of two credit cards so the bank account doesn't see that many transactions during a normal month. Reconciling by eye-ball is easy enough.
I always wanted to be a procrastinator.
user5027
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by user5027 »

Went paperless and works fine.

I use excel as my check register / cash flow projector to year end. I reconcile every time I log on to my checking account/bill payer (every few days). I know the statement cutoff is the 14th. I don't reconcile after that until the statement is issued. When statement is issued I reconcile and save excel as a new month.

Saving the bank money reduces their cost and hopefully my fees (which are zero).

Caution >>> Be sure you have a data back-up protocol. You do not want to loose your statements in a hard disk failure. It should include an offsite copy (cloud or another location) in case of fire. I use a laptop with two external hard drives. The laptop travels with me and the external hard drives are at home and work. I do a backup every few days.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by TheTimeLord »

I haven't balanced my checkbook in maybe 15 years or looked at a statement. If I write 4 checks a month it would be a busy month. I pay as many bills as possible by Fidelity Am Ex to get 2% cash back and pay that electronically. I just check the account online a couple times a week.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by cheese_breath »

user5027 wrote:Went paperless and works fine.

Caution >>> Be sure you have a data back-up protocol.
How about printing them for backup. :wink:

This reminds me of a Humor in Uniform tidbit in Reader's Digest many, many years ago. An overseas post near the battle zone was short on storage space for all their documents, so they submitted a request to HQ for authorization to destroy the old paperwork that was no longer needed. HQ granted permission provided they make three copies of everything first.
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
kaudrey
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by kaudrey »

I haven't received a paper bank statement, brokerage statement, or bill of any kind in years.
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Hayden
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Hayden »

I switched to paperless when I started planning for retirement and extended travel. I didn't want to worry about what happened to my paper statements when I was traveling for 6 weeks. It has worked fine for me.
nordlead
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by nordlead »

I've actually never had paper statements (12 years), excluding when I was a minor and my parents names were on the account. I consider it a waste of resources (trees for paper, gas for delivery, human resources to put it all together) and my time as I then have to shred the statement and transport it to the curb. Sure, I may not get any visible cash benefit, but if everyone on electronic delivery all of a sudden switched to paper delivery, I guarantee you the banks would increase fees or lower interest rates.

I also don't really use statements to reconcile accounts. I use Mint.com to monitor my accounts, and pretty much everything runs through CC's on autopayment, and things that won't go on the CC (mortgage, electric/gas, water) all get billed straight to my bank account. I rarely write checks too, as the bank does it for me on the rare occasion I need to make a non-automatic payment. CC fraud is typically caught within 24/hrs instead of waiting a month or more.

Even if you didn't want to use a service like Mint, electronic is the way to go as you can download the data and import it into your program of choice.

Quick and efficient, and I know where every dollar is going.
user5027
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by user5027 »

cheese_breath wrote:This reminds me of a Humor in Uniform tidbit in Reader's Digest many, many years ago. An overseas post near the battle zone was short on storage space for all their documents, so they submitted a request to HQ for authorization to destroy the old paperwork that was no longer needed. HQ granted permission provided they make three copies of everything first.
Gotta love the military logic. I think it was 1969 when the family took a summer vacation to Lake of the Ozarks to see my oldest brother who was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood before shipping off to Viet Nam. We arrived at the base and found my brother to pick him up to go water skiing. He informed us that while his platoon leader was okay with him leaving, the Lieutenant would not allow it. "Your platoon has grass cutting detail, no one leaves until it is done!" They had two push mowers. :oops:
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cheese_breath
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by cheese_breath »

nordlead wrote:... but if everyone on electronic delivery all of a sudden switched to paper delivery, I guarantee you the banks would increase fees or lower interest rates....
And do you believe if everyone switched to paperless they'd lower fees or increase interest rates just because they were able to reduce costs?
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
Sidney
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Sidney »

cheese_breath wrote:
nordlead wrote:... but if everyone on electronic delivery all of a sudden switched to paper delivery, I guarantee you the banks would increase fees or lower interest rates....
And do you believe if everyone switched to paperless they'd lower fees or increase interest rates just because they were able to reduce costs?
Don't some banks waive account fees for accounts that use paper statements.

Wouldn't surprise me or disappoint me if the started charging a fee for paper statements and paper check transactions.
I always wanted to be a procrastinator.
Crow Hunter
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Crow Hunter »

sscritic wrote:
cheese_breath wrote: I also reconcile my accounts manually, and I prefer to have the financial institutions shoulder the cost of the ink and paper for printing the statements. (I know the customers eventually pay all their expenses, but even if I did go paperless they wouldn't give me a better deal.)
I am with cheese_breath. I would like to thank all of you paperless people for paying for my ink and paper. As a boglehead, I always appreciate when other people shoulder my costs for me.
I'm a Luddite too and intend to stay that way.

I still pay with paper checks, get a paper statement, keep a check register and submit a paper tax form.

I don't do any autopays or direct debits.

After the recent "fun" I have had trying to stop different companies from taking autopays and then trying to get money back that was incorrectly debited after my Mom passed away, I will have to be forced into doing it. It is amazing when you call and report a death the pension check direct deposits stop instantly. But somehow, the direct debit of retiree health care premiums from the same company do not (even 1 month later) and the refunds aren't instant either. Don't get me started on cell phone companies... :annoyed

I do have our paychecks direct deposited but that is about as deep into the 21st century banking pool as I want to get.
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pjstack
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by pjstack »

I admit to Luddite tendencies too, but I keep track of my checking account balance on-line (daily), so I don't really need the monthly statement (electronic).

I don't even bother to download or even open it any more.
pjstack
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BolderBoy
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by BolderBoy »

Gort wrote:Friends,
What are your thoughts concerning using paperless statements from your bank for checking accounts? I currently get a paper copy mailed to me monthly (I've been doing this for 40 years without a problem). For those of you who switched to paperless statements, do you like them? Is it convenient for you when reconciling your account? Is it secure or perhaps more secure than getting a mailed copy?
Thanks much,
Gort
Been paperless since it was first offered by each institution I've been with - probably at least 15 years. Never had a need for a paper statement in that time (or the cancelled check).

My 90ish y/o mother still likes to get her bank statements and cancelled checks so she can reconcile her accounts.
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webslinger
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by webslinger »

Gort

One advantage to paperless account statements is the time and energy saved in not having to shred old statements.

Webslinger
sscritic
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by sscritic »

webslinger wrote: One advantage to paperless account statements is the time and energy saved in not having to shred old statements.
While I have some statements from 40 years ago, the ones I no longer have never saw a shredder. If I want to get rid of old statements, I clean an animal and wrap the viscera and offal in them. Then they go in the garbage. As far as I know, no one has ever read any of my old statements, at least not in a way that harmed me.
MoneySeeker24
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by MoneySeeker24 »

I've been registered to paperless statement since for 4 years now and I don't have any problem about it.
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jeffyscott
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by jeffyscott »

sscritic wrote:
cheese_breath wrote: I also reconcile my accounts manually, and I prefer to have the financial institutions shoulder the cost of the ink and paper for printing the statements. (I know the customers eventually pay all their expenses, but even if I did go paperless they wouldn't give me a better deal.)
I am with cheese_breath. I would like to thank all of you paperless people for paying for my ink and paper. As a boglehead, I always appreciate when other people shoulder my costs for me.
I have only taken paperless when there is an ongoing reward (or waiver of a fee) for doing so and no bank has offered that. I've recently been offered a one time $5 bonus from a bank, if I go paperless. I may take the measly $5 now, figuring the next thing will be $1 per month for paper or something.

The best offer we've gotten is a 2% discount from insurance company for paperless, about $25 per year.
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GerryL
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by GerryL »

I gradually started going paperless. Wanted to see if it worked for me. As I got used to it, I waited for companies to offer a $ reward for giving up paper statements. Eventually the rewards have given way to extra charges for paper. My employer has made the e-statements non-optional for all services it administers (corp credit card, 401k, etc).
Jack
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Jack »

sscritic wrote:
DualIncomeNoDebt wrote:
If electronic documents are good enough for the IRS,
Which is why the IRS uses emails rather than paper memos for internal documents. Electronic records such as emails can easily be stored and retrieved at any time. :)
Email was never intended nor is it legally required to be a permanent store of information. It is a transient form of communication like a phone call and no one should store important information in email. Federal regulations require email that qualifies as a "federal record" must be moved from the email system to a permanent record keeping system. The email system itself is not considered to be a record keeping system nor is all email considered to be a "federal record" subject to record keeping.

There is nothing wrong with electronic record keeping. One should simply not mistake email for a record keeping system.
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Gattamelata
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Gattamelata »

My credit union gives me a 4.07% interest rate on the first $500 in checking and the first $500 in savings, and it doubles the interest rate on my money market account from 0.15% to 0.3% if I use eStatements. That's good enough for me.
Trader Joe
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Trader Joe »

100% paper. This ensures everything is read and then filed or destroyed - as needed.
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joe8d
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by joe8d »

Trader Joe wrote:100% paper. This ensures everything is read and then filed or destroyed - as needed.
Same here.
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banjo
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by banjo »

I still get paper statements for most of my financial information. The eStatements are fine as long as everything works. Unfortunately, the electronic versions of those important papers can disappear in a flash. You are one internet glitch away from losing all of it. Witness what happened to all those bitcoin owners on Mt. Gox. Poof! Gone.

But you have them on your own disk? I have seen many disks fail with no warning. Huge numbers of important documents can suddenly not be there. Put them on CD? The inks in the CD's that you burn yourself are good for maybe 5 years. We have had CD's become unreadable in that amount of time. Put it in the Cloud? What are the odds that the Cloud will be hacked and your statements will all belong to THEM? Email? Sure. There are sniffers out there that read your emails..... the Google boys even admit that they look at all the emails (just programs... not people... but....).

My employer keeps pushing the electronic pay stubs at work. A friend of mine signed up, and it went OK for a few months. But when he tried to print one of the statements, the printer truncated a bunch of the numbers. No matter what he did, he could not print the entire statement. I guess they didn't set it up quite right and the statements were not printable. I don't know if they have fixed it or not. Then, there is the question of what happens if you lose the job and you lose access to the account where the statements are stored. How do you get your statements then? Plan ahead and email them home? What goes out in the email is in the net permanently. You cannot call it back. It is all archived.

My friend went back to paper.

Electronic statements are the wave of the future, and soon they will be mandatory. Just be careful. Be sure that you download everything and back it up.... and then backup the backups. Think twice about emails. You must assume that all emails are still out there even after you have deleted them. All emails are archived as they bounce from server to server.

It is crazy risky out there.
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Gattamelata
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Gattamelata »

banjo wrote:... You are one internet glitch away from losing all of it. ... I have seen many disks fail with no warning. ... The inks in the CD's that you burn yourself are good for maybe 5 years. ... What are the odds that the Cloud will be hacked and your statements will all belong to THEM? ... There are sniffers out there that read your emails.....
Can't you construct a similar chain of disaster scenarios for paper statements? Postal employee goes rogue, fire in the truck/mailbox/post office, burglar grabs your statements, parchment locusts get into your file cabinet, worldwide paper shortage, meteor strike, etc.

We can imagine a worst case scenario that will defeat any preparation, but exploring the limits of our imagination is not a great way of setting parameters on our risk:effort assessments. Can I imagine scenarios where my retirement savings are worthless? Sure - this board alone has seemingly monthly discussions of how to hedge against a global financial collapse. Am I going to try to plan for that? Nope. Too unlikely a risk, no reasonable mitigation. The question is how much risk you want to plan for and how much is acceptable.

To that point, has there been a lot of financial fraud based on people getting access to your statements? I don't know, but if it were possible, I think it would happen a lot. Think for a moment about how secure getting your statements in the mail is. Every month, several people - perhaps dozens - hold your statement in their hands before you ever see it. Every month that statement comes at the same time of the month, in an identical envelope that has a logo of the institution on it.

Even if account statement-based fraud is possible, I'd argue that electronic statements are much more secure than paper statements.
lululu
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by lululu »

Gattamelata wrote:My credit union gives me a 4.07% interest rate on the first $500 in checking and the first $500 in savings, and it doubles the interest rate on my money market account from 0.15% to 0.3% if I use eStatements. That's good enough for me.
Not sure if you're saying the 4.07% depends on paperless statements.

My credit union has a 3% rate on the first $500 in savings regardless of the form of statements.

I get paper statements because my ISP is over-vigilant with detecting "spam" and sometimes throws away real email. I know because I have send me everything set, and real stuff comes through sometimes marked as spam. I believe they also take it upon themselves to throw away some stuff anyway even though I have send me everything set.

I can't believe people don't balance their checking accounts. That's like not looking at credit card statements.
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by lululu »

banjo wrote:Then, there is the question of what happens if you lose the job and you lose access to the account where the statements are stored. How do you get your statements then? Plan ahead and email them home? What goes out in the email is in the net permanently. You cannot call it back. It is all archived.
Print stuff off or copy it to a flash drive if flash drives are permitted and take it home on a regular basis. Having been through several layoffs in the dotcom collapse, I learned not to depend on work systems being there or enough time to save stuff when things were going down the tubes.
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CyberBob
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by CyberBob »

Aren't all bank accounts paperless? That is, your bank doesn't have a ledger book with your account information in it. All they have are electronic records.

Bob
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jeffyscott
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by jeffyscott »

lululu wrote:
Gattamelata wrote:I can't believe people don't balance their checking accounts. That's like not looking at credit card statements.
Not really, balancing was really just checking the math...mostly checking the math in your personal, hand written, ledger. You can look at the statement and verify that everything is correct and skip keeping your own ledger, since you can check the balance on line at any time and most people no longer have a bunch of checks that have not cleared yet.

I do keep my own ledger (a google docs spreadsheet) for our main account as there are a lot of automatic payments that come out of it (which is like having checks that have not cleared yet) and I want to know what the real available balance is. I check the charges and deposits and check that I have not made an error in entering the data by checking that the ending balance on the statement matches that on my spreadsheet for that date.
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Doom&Gloom
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Doom&Gloom »

I went paperless almost as soon as our bank offered it. I don't recall ever looking at a statement on-line, though perhaps I did initially. There seems to be no need as I can balance my accounts each time I log on to pay a bill, transfer funds, or just to "check something".

A few months ago, I finally got around to tossing out years of accumulated paper bank statements. What a mess. And I can't recall having to forage for a cancelled check in the past 15-20 years. But I probably should download and save my bank statements to my computer as I do my credit card statements.
banjo
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by banjo »

Can't you construct a similar chain of disaster scenarios for paper statements? Postal employee goes rogue, fire in the truck/mailbox/post office, burglar grabs your statements, parchment locusts get into your file cabinet, worldwide paper shortage, meteor strike, etc.
Good point. However, I have never seen the mail truck catch fire. That would be something to see fer sure. But I actually have seen access to web sites disappear overnight, and I have had computer disks crash suddenly and lose it all. So some disaster scenarios are more likely than others.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go paperless. I'm saying that you shouldn't assume that your information is all safe and sound "out there". Complacency is your enemy.

Go to the bogleheads search box and type "account disappeared" and then read the stories about missing money and crashed hard drives. Then, search for "mail truck burned". You don't get so many relevant hits. LOL

After it happens to you, your heart will stop, and then you will jump on the backup bandwagon. I have.
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pjstack
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by pjstack »

My question is: why do you want to save all this crud? Why, or when, will you ever need a two year old checking/saving account statement?

Why keep this stuff, either in paper or on disk?
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banjo
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by banjo »

I believe that the statute of limitations set by the IRS is 7 years. If they think that fraud is involved, there is no time limit. I think that it is wise to have a paper trail just in case. To each his own.
placeholder
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by placeholder »

The statute of limitations for normal audits is three years.
LeeMKE
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by LeeMKE »

I would love to switch everything to electronic.

Here's my dilemma. What happens if I can't take care of things? How does my husband figure out what bills to pay if they are sending the bill via email and I'm unable to open and read my email? I'm consolidating accounts so at least he would be able to find our money. But making bill paying invisible makes me wonder if I'm setting a trap for the unwary.
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lululu
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by lululu »

Doom&Gloom wrote: A few months ago, I finally got around to tossing out years of accumulated paper bank statements. What a mess. And I can't recall having to forage for a cancelled check in the past 15-20 years. But I probably should download and save my bank statements to my computer as I do my credit card statements.
My credit union no longer supplies cancelled checks via paper, but there are images available on the web. I take screen snapshots of, say, my property tax payments, and save them.
lululu
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by lululu »

LeeMKE wrote:I would love to switch everything to electronic.

Here's my dilemma. What happens if I can't take care of things? How does my husband figure out what bills to pay if they are sending the bill via email and I'm unable to open and read my email? I'm consolidating accounts so at least he would be able to find our money. But making bill paying invisible makes me wonder if I'm setting a trap for the unwary.
I have a written up document that I update whenever I close or open an account. It lists all the "savings" accounts with balances updated once a month, and has a list of places that money is owed to periodically (which utilities, property tax, doctors' and dentist's names, etc.) Periodically I swap a new version into the safe deposit box, and an up to date version is at home on the laptop and on paper.
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Duckie
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by Duckie »

LeeMKE wrote:What happens if I can't take care of things? How does my husband figure out what bills to pay if they are sending the bill via email and I'm unable to open and read my email?
If you don't want to let your husband have your normal email password for emergencies then you could set up a joint email account specifically for bill notification. That way your husband could access all the "business" emails. Of course, he'd still need to be able to access the individual billing accounts to see the bill details.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by cheese_breath »

I just finished reconciling my credit card charges for last month to the statement. Sure glad the statement wasn't paperless.
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
sscritic
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Re: Paperless Statements (bank checking acct)

Post by sscritic »

pjstack wrote:My question is: why do you want to save all this crud? Why, or when, will you ever need a two year old checking/saving account statement?
When you get divorced and the lawyer for the other side wants to know your exact net worth as of the date of separation, 3/14/2012.
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