Pay your Bills Online and Save a Lot of Time

(using BPI Express Online)
Are you the one still standing on long queues to pay your monthly bills? Then this article is written for you.
Nowadays, we are always time-strapped, always running out of time to beat endless deadlines, from household chores to office schedules. We feel that our waking time is not enough to accomplish what is on our to-do list. We may not realize it but one of the major time-waster is paying our monthly bills. We spend a minimum of 1 hour to pay our bills including travel to the nearest payment center and queue time and even longer hours if the bills are due because we need to go to the merchant’s office to pay. Not only that we spend time, we also spend money on transportation and maybe food just to pay our bills.
Paying bills online and maximizing online facilities available allow us to productively use our time, with just a few clicks, bills are paid free of hassle. We can spend the time with friends and family or simply by ourselves.
Below are the step by step guide on how to pay bills using BPI Express Online.
Other banks also offer online payment facilities.
For BPI account holders, first enroll your BPI online express to allow online transactions.

Paying Meralco Bills:
1. Log-in to access your account BPI Express Online account.
Required Information:
User ID and Password
2. Enroll your Meralco Account No.
Payments and Reloading >>>> Enroll All Other Bills
Required Information:
Joint Account Indicator (JAI) No. (can be found on your ATM card)


Bill Information:

For Company Name, select Manila Electric Company (MERALC)

Reference No. (can be found on the Electric Bill copy), enter the account no. without dash line

Enter a registered e-mail address as an additional security.

Click Submit.
3. Pay your Meralco Bill
Payments and Reloading >>>> Pay Bills Today>>>> Select the enrolled Meralco Account No.

Required Information:
Total Amount Due: (found on the electric bill copy)
Additional Reference No.: (12^th -15^th character of the ATM/Phone Reference No.)
Remark: (can be left as blank or input some transaction details)
Click Submit.
4. If successful, page will proceed to bills payment confirmation page. You can either print the page or write down the confirmation number for future reference.
There are other payment options written at the back of the electric bill copy.
1. Automatic Debit Arrangement (ADA)
This option requires a visit to your bank to authorize your bank to debit the bill amount from your account on the due date and remit the payment to Meralco. Accredited ADA Partners include:
1. Asia United Bank
2. Banco de Oro
3. Bank of the Philippine Islands
4. Citibank
5. Philippine National Bank
6. Security Bank
7. Union Bank of the Philippines
8. United Coconut Planters Bank
2. You can also pay at Bayad Centers and bank partners
Few more tips to make your payment hassle-free.
1. Always bring your electric bill everytime you pay your bill
2. Check payment should be payable to “Meralco” or “Manila Electric Company”. At the back of the check, write your account no., contact person name and contact no.
3. Pay on or before your due date. All accredited banks and Bayad Centers will accept payment for accounts without overdue bills.
4. Accounts with overdue bills can be paid only at any Meralco Business Center or Extension Office.
For more helpful information, you can visit the Meralco website.
http://www.meralco.com.ph/products-services-tools/payment-options



Paying Maynilad Bill
1. Log-in to access your account BPI Express Online account.
Required Information:
User ID and Password
2. Enroll your Maynilad Contract Account No.
Payments and Reloading >>>> Enroll All Other Bills
Required Information:
Joint Account Indicator (JAI) No. (can be found on your ATM card)

For Company Name, select Maynilad Water Services, Inc (MNILAD)

Reference No. (can be found on the Maynilad Water Bill copy)

Enter a registered e-mail address as an additional security.

Click Submit.

3. Pay your Maynilad Bill
Payments and Reloading >>>> Pay Bills Today>>>> Select the enrolled Maynilad Account No.
Required Information:

Total Amount Due: (can be found on the Maynilad Water Bill copy)

Additional Reference No.: (not applicable for this merchant, leave as blank)

Remark: (can be left as blank or input some transaction details)
Click Submit.
4. If successful, page will proceed to bills payment confirmation page. You can either print the page or write down the confirmation number for future reference.

Paying Smart Bill
1. Log-in to access your account BPI Express Online account.
Required Information:
User ID and Password
2. Enroll your Maynilad Contract Account No.
Payments and Reloading >>>> Enroll All Other Bills
Required Information:
Joint Account Indicator (JAI) No. (can be found on your ATM card)

For Company Name, select Smart Communications, Inc (SMART)

Reference No. (can be found on the Statement of Account copy)

Enter a registered e-mail address as an additional security.

Click Submit.

3. Pay your Smart Bill
Payments and Reloading >>>> Pay Bills Today>>>> Select the enrolled Smart Account No.
Required Information:

Total Amount Due: (can be found on the Statement of Account copy)

Additional Reference No.: (not applicable for this merchant, leave as blank)

Remark: (can be left as blank or input some transaction details)
Click Submit.
4. If successful, page will proceed to bills payment confirmation page. You can either print the page or write down the confirmation number for future reference.
Once all these account numbers are enrolled, the next time you pay all you have to do are steps 3 and 4.

Organize your Digital Life in 3 Easy Ways

Today's technology enables us to snap pictures anytime and anywhere. Gone are the days that photography is for the selected few, and the result is that majority of us are struggling with the compounding quantity of our digital files. We are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of photos and videos that we want to organize, maybe we have tried and failed miserably on what seems to be a very simple task and as a result we have totally given up, we are left wondering if one day we will ever manage our precious digital memories. Organizing our digital life is tough and time consuming especially when we have already accumulated tons of giga bites dumped in our computers and we don't have a reliable organizing system.
Digital organizing is so important because it frees up valuable computer disc space and allows us to browse files easily. It lightens our feeling knowing that our memories are properly organized, managed and stored.

These 3 easy steps are guaranteed to make our digital life clutter free.
1. Compile
Create a main folder and compile all the photos and videos from all sources that need to be organized. It can be either from your phone, camera or photos shared from your friends and relatives you've joined with from a recent trip or dinner.
2. Organize

Create as many folders as necessary with "year" as the filename. Drag and drop photos to its corresponding "year" folder by using this filter "date picture taken". Now that all the files taken during that year are in one folder, we can start creating subfolders based on the photos.

Tip:

Filename should be descriptive enough so you avoid the guessing what is inside the subfolder. Since we normally take a lot of photos of our vacation, celebration and important events, it is best to name the folders based on specific travel location and events like "london trip" and "brielle's 1st bday" respectively, the more specific the better. For photos taken at random moments, we simply put them in folder we can name as Random.
3. Manage
Managing the files means keeping what is relevant and deleting what is unnecessary.
This maybe the hardest part at the beginning but we need to choose what pictures are worth keeping and meaningful.
But most importantly have fun, don't rush!
Hope this helps and feel free to comment if you have other ideas.

Guide #2: Use Online Banking

Banking online allows you to do banking transactions at your fingertips. You just need a reliable internet to use services like making fund transfer and paying bills. While there are a lot of banking transactions that we can perform online, two things we usually do where we can save money and time is making deposits and paying bills.

One of the banking services we can enjoy is making online deposits, we don't need to physically go to the bank to make deposits. Online shopping is now a trend in the Philippines but some online shops require you to make deposits to their account, by using this feature you can make the transaction by using your laptop or mobile, take a snapshot and send it to them as proof of payment. Sometimes, we also need to make emergency deposits to send to our families and friends and utilizing this feature allows us to lend a helping hand really quick in real time.

Paying bills is always considered a hassle and going to payment center is time-consuming.
A long queue usually discourages us and put paying our bills for tomorrow and sometimes we completely forget about it which results to penalty charges due to late payments and we can actually avoid it if we can maximize the perks of online banking. Taking advantage of the online banking services, we can pay majority of our bills online, like Maynilad, Meralco, credit card, telecommunications, tuition fee and many more. We just need activate our online banking account, then enroll the account number of the merchant we want to include. I'll be making a step by step guide on how to pay bills online as reference for the newbie.