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Should we switch from paper to electronic bank (and other) statements?
Results so far:
| Yes | 61% | 309 votes | Total: 503 votes | |
| No | 39% | 194 votes |
Yes
by Amon Karagara
Created on: March 13, 2008 Last Updated: June 30, 2010
Convenience, security, speed, environmental safety are some of the benefits we would derive from opting for electronic statements over paper statements. We should therefore switch from paper statements to electronic bank (and other) statements, given the benefits associated with such a move:
SECURITY. Electronic statements are more secure than paper statements. Mail gets lost sometimes. So, in the unfortunate event that yours gets lost, your account information is at risk should your statement end in the hands of a wrong person. On the other hand, if you use electronic statements and keep your online password secure, you will not have to worry about anyone else accessing your account information. Additionally, you could easily put your information in the trash and you never know who is digging in the bin just to see if they could get lucky and come across some useful information that they can use to commit fraud against you. Not possible with electronic statements.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN. Printing paper statements involves a lot of activities that destroy the environment. For instance, the cutting of trees, running of factories to produce paper, ink and printer products, transportation of all these supplies, etc, all have a negative impact on the environment. So, as long as you are not going to print your electronic statements from home, we can contribute to a safer environment by opting for electronic statements.
MORE ORGANIZED. There is a lot of clutter involved with paper statements. So you will have to deal with so much paperwork around your home if you get every statement in the mail. And sometimes, you can easily misplace useful information, which you otherwise would not have to worry about if you were using electronic statements. You can view your statements online, save them somewhere in a secure folder and access them when you want to. Plus, you can easily import your information into financial software such as Microsoft Money, Quicken, etc.
CONVENIENCE AND LESS TIME CONSUMING. Electronic statements provide a lot of convenience not possible with paper statements. By going electronic, you can access your statements from any computer with internet access, pay your bill on a click of a button and go on with your other activities. This saves you a lot of time that you would have otherwise wasted looking for a paper statement, writing a check and going out to the post office to mail it.
LESS COSTLY. You can save some money by using electronic statements. There are no stamps and checks to mail, no gas wasted driving to the post office, etc. And there is no worrying about late payments, should your mail be delayed (electronic payments usually post when you submit them or at least within a day), or in case you forget to mail the payment at all because your statement is stuck somewhere in a pile of papers.
BANKS AND BUSINESSES SAVE MONEY if customers choose electronic statements. The cost of buying paper, ink, printer maintenance, as well as posting the statements would be eliminated in the case of electronic statements. Such cost savings can be passed on to customers in the form of better services. So, as banks and other institutions save, customers also benefit.
Given such benefits, we should opt for electronic over paper statements.
Learn more about this author, Amon Karagara.
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No
by Lynette Alice
Created on: April 19, 2008 Last Updated: April 01, 2009
Call it old fashioned but the switch from the traditional banking statements on paper as well as bills is hardly appealing. While the world is fighting to go "green" and reduce paper usage and computers are now considered a safe and competent alternative it is hard to make that leap of faith to changing over again. Why is it that this is the case?
The decision to remain stuck in the past as many put it is far from being based solely on simply being what the kids call old school. My partner and I are small business owners. Each of us come from families that have been in the financial fields or small business owners going back at least three generations each and with that comes experience and knowledge. Most significantly however is the first hand experience of trying to go paperless and the increase of headaches it caused.
We tried being environmentally sound and friendly moving into the the modern times. We switched everything we could to electronic statements. It didn't however take long to realize some important things that made this a terrible move for us personally, which were that we needed to have hard copies of our transactions, and the hard copies we made by printing our on line receipts were worthless when it came to adjudicating errors.
While the concept of going paperless was nice, as pointed out above it wasn't really paperless, it was just different paper. When a bill came in we had to print a copy of it to place in our files should it be necessary for an audit or to dispute an error. The piece of printer paper was usually larger than the paper the bill would have come on to start with which defeated the purpose of switching from a conservation standpoint. We then realized that most businesses charged a fee to get an original copy of a bill over three months old which meant more paper- the folding kind of paper money going out of our pocket, to acquire a bill that would have otherwise been in our possession free of charge each month. In fact almost all businesses only offer a three month billing history on line free of charge. With that limited availability what happens if per se the IRS decides to conduct an audit of four years prior and you don't have those bills to refer to?
From personal experience I can tell you the answer. You will spend a lot of money and time tracking all this information down. Your bank will require a charge of anywhere from one to three dollars per month plus postage to give you a paper copy of old statements. Businesses will do a similar thing. They view getting such records to you a nuisance and as it costs them to get you those records you will pay for them. The IRS will tell you copies of statements printed from your computer are a nice reference point but prove nothing as they are not official and can be doctored by anyone with a desire to do so. This is just one disadvantage to handling your finances on line. Furthermore should you have a dispute with a billing agent itself who is to say that without that original mailed out paper copy of a bill, what you see online is what was actually there originally? Let's face it, not every business is ethical.
A second is that there are times when the computer is down and you need information regarding billing right away to conduct daily business. You have two choices, either wait for the server to come back on line or put your business on hold. Perhaps you can try to handle matters by phone, but that can be cumbersome and aggravating especially if you do not have a hard copy of a bill or invoice to refer to. If you are lucky you can refer back to printed out copies of the documents you needed from on line transactions if you have them, which again isn't really going paperless.
The third bone of contention is how much personal and business information do you want out in the electronic world? Granted not everyone is hacked or has to deal with identity theft but when transactions are made on line they are floating around out there for anyone with the proper knowledge of how to do so to gain access to that information. Every credit card number, bank account, purchase made, etc... holds an increased potential for being compromised. The more you have the more you are at risk.
After our experience of going paperless we decided that for us it just wasn't realistic or viable. We had to have official hard copies available at all times and on record to insure the ability to conduct business efficiently and accurately and insure that should a problem arise more than three months old we didn't have to jump through hoops wasting time and money to prove our side of the billing story. It is true we do pay some bills electronically, but we always without fail demand we be mailed our paper copy of monthly statements for everything. This seems to be the only mix that works for us.
In summary the move to electronic transactions may be fine for those whom are paying a household bill or two per month, and far easier than writing checks and mailing them in, but in business the old paper way is still the best way. It provides a legally acceptable record of bills and payments as well as a good on hand backup reference immediately available whenever necessary. Plus as we found out actually going paperless in business is a myth. You may cut out the paper bill coming to you in the mail, but you will still be printing the on line payment receipt to accompany the on line statement for your records. Unless you have full faith in others when it comes to your money and believe you will never have a dispute going paperless is not just a bad idea, but a potentially dangerous and expensive mistake.
Learn more about this author, Lynette Alice.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
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