New one-time payment service is free and makes paying your bill simpler

by Jacky Leung | Nov. 12, 2019

Nobody likes paying bills, whether it’s your mortgage, your utility bills, or even that Netflix subscription that helps keep you entertained. While we might need and should appreciate the services and products that we’re paying for, when it comes time to actually pay for them, it’s a pain.

Besides the obvious financial burdens associated with paying bills, there’s also the tedium and hassle. Online payment services have certainly made the process easier overall, but because each vendor usually has their own separate payment setup and accepted payment methods, it can still be somewhat inconvenient.

With that in mind, the Hawaiian Electric Companies has introduced a new one-time payment service for customers with online accounts to help make paying their electric bills simpler. This free service leverages the existing Online Customer Service Center and allows customers to pay their bill through a checking or savings bank account without having to go to a third party site. If you currently don’t have an online account, please register today.

Paying for your bill with this new service can be done in a few simple steps:

1. Log in to your online account.
2. Navigate to the “Payment Options” page under the “Billing” tab and click the “Schedule One-Time Payment” button or just schedule it straight from where you view your balance.
3. Choose a payment date, payment amount, and a bank account to deduct from. If you don’t have a bank account on file, you can easily add one.
4. Click the “Continue” button to submit the payment. An email confirmation will be sent to the email address on file.

Along with the rollout of this new service, the old payment method via MyCheckFree.com has been discontinued. If you were previously paying your electric bills with MyCheckFree.com, please choose another method to pay your electric bill, as any scheduled payments after the end of November will be canceled.

There are also other services that can help make things more convenient. You can sign up for paperless billing, which notifies you by email when your bill is ready for review and lets you view it online. For even less hassle, our free automatic bill payment service allows payments to be automatically deducted from a bank account of your choosing.

For those of us that like to review our bills before paying them, automatic bill payment and paperless billing actually work really well together. Because online bills are available for review several weeks before they are due and automatic deductions are made when the bills are actually due, this allows for plenty of time to review your bills first and raise possible issues beforehand.

We’re continually working to improve our services to help provide a one-stop shop for all customer needs. Paying bills will never be enjoyable, so consider some of these convenient options to help make it a little more painless.

Jacky Leung is a digital communications analyst at Hawaiian Electric Company.