In the US taxes are also payable like that - it seems no matter where you are the government wants to be able to get that tax money . . . .

Back in the day my business wrote about 200 checks a month and I personally wrote about 40. Now the business writes probably 3 a month and personally about the same. When your child's school wants checks for a field trip they do not take credit cards . . .

Rather than a credit card, we use the MC/VISA branded debit cards. No way to buy something without the funds available, although it does make record keeping more time consuming than just printing checks for all outstanding invoices.

I do have a few clients that only pay by pushing the payments into my bank, meaning I had to give them my bank info. There is no way to know a reference number, so they have to gen an email telling us what invoices were paid, and we have to match them up. Easier for them, more work for us.

>Tuvia,
>
>I agree that "direct debit" makes sense for utilities, telephony and other regular variable bills. In the UK the IRS also receives sales tax via this means: you file your VAT return and they debit the account. In Australasia, tax and many other bills are "push" paid electronically. The electronic transaction generally includes a reference and description field, with your tax ID and/or invoice number expected in the reference. Trademe, the Australasian equivalent of Ebay, relies substantially on quick electronic payment into the seller's account, iow not via Paypal or some other intermediary. I have not written a check for many, many years- it's cheaper and simpler to make electronic payment or to use a credit card with full balance payment also debited automatically once a month.