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How to use Bill Pay

Add and pay bills right from your NWCU accounts!

To qualify for Bill Pay, you'll need to have a Northwest Checking account with NWCU and be enrolled in eBanking. Essential Checking and Northwest Passage accounts are currently not eligible for Bill Pay.

Get Set Up on Bill Pay

  1. Log into eBanking.
  2. In the menu, select Transactions and then Bill Payment.
  3. Your primary account (usually, your first checking account) will be where the funds are pulled from. If you have more than one checking account set up, you'll be able to choose between accounts.

Bill pay home page

How does Bill Pay Work?

Once you’ve set up your billing details, payments will be processed automatically. Checks can be sent out in one of three ways: draft check, certified check, or electronically. Electronic and certified checks withdraw funds from your account around 11 AM on the scheduled payment date. Any payments scheduled after 11 AM will go out the next business day. Draft checks will withdraw funds when the payee cashes the check.

To avoid late fees, be sure to check each payee's delivery date and ensure funds will be available when the payment is set to pull.

How to Schedule a Bill (How to Set Up a Payee)

To set up a bill (or payee) for the first time, you'll follow the steps below. You can enter bills manually or you can use Bill Discovery (more on this below) to add bills.

  1. You can type a name into the network search function or choose one of the options below. Options include credit cards, phone companies, utilities, charities, and more. If you'd like to set up a payment to a specific person, choose "Everything Else" and then select "Person."

Step 1 of Setting up a Bill

  1. You'll enter the fields as they're laid out. For credit cards, it'll include your account number and an optional nickname. For a person, you'll need to include their email, phone number, and a mailing address (do not mail checks to invidiual people to their banks).

Filling in bill details.

  1. In the third screen, you'll choose how much you'd like to send them and when the payment should be made. To ensure you don't receive any late fees, make sure to schedule it a few days before the bill is due to ensure it's processed before it's due.

Setting up payment for a new bill

Once you set up a bill and a payment, you'll see it in the Payment Center under "Pending Payments." You'll also receive an email that a new bill was added to Bill Pay.

Add Bills Automatically Using Bill Discovery

If you don't want to manually enter your bills, you can use Bill Discovery to automatically add bills using a soft pull on your credit report (NWCU will NOT pull your report and search for bills without your consent and this credit report access will NOT affect your credit score) or through our extensive biller network.

This speeds up the process of adding bills and allows you to only add the bills you want while also ensuring you don't have to find and type in all those account numbers.

Note: if your credit is locked down for fraud, security, or other reasons, the credit bureau search will return an error.

Getting started is easy:

  1. From the menu, select Bill Payment.
  2. From the "Add a Company or Person" section, choose the "Find My Bills" tab.
  3. Check the boxes next to "Bills from our biller network" and/or "Your credit report" to search for bills. Then click the "Find My Bills" button to find your bills!
  4. Based on your selections, Bill Pay will provide you with a list of bills that have been found. Select which bills you'd like to add to Bill Pay and then click "Add."
  5. Your newly selected bills will show up in Bill Pay!

Bill Discovery will search for additional bills on an ongoing basis. If new bills are found, you'll receive an email letting you know you can add a new bill.

How to Edit or Cancel a Payment

Checks are sent out three business days in advance, so to cancel or edit a check, you'll need to modify it before this period begins.

To do this, select the payment under the Pending Payments header and click “Cancel” or “Change”. In the next screen, click "Cancel Payment" to cancel the payment. If you don't want to cancel it, you can click the "Do Not Cancel Payment" link.

To change the payment, click "Change" and from the next screen, you'll be able to change the amount or the date. Then press "Save Changes."

If you see the word "processing," this means it's too late to edit or cancel a payment aside from placing a stop payment request.

Cancel or changed payments will show up in the "Recent Payments" area in your Payment Center.

Payment Center

How Can I Place a Stop on a Check That has Been Sent?

If it’s too late to cancel or edit a payment, you’ll need to request a stop payment. Contact us via phone at (800) 452-9515 or send us a Secure Message via online banking is the best way to stop a check that’s gone out as scheduled.

Stop payments on Bill Pay checks follow our standard fee rate and can be done up to six months after the check is written. If you're waiting for a payment to clear, we recommend waiting 5 business days before placing a stop, to allow the payee time to receive and process the payment."

How Do I Find Out What Happened to My Check?

We partner with PartnerCare to provide you the Bill Pay service. They guarantee each mailed payment, so long as the information provided for the payee is accurate, and the payment date is no later than your due date. If a payee tells you that a check hasn’t reached them, or that your payment is now late due to an undelivered check, you can submit a payment inquiry.

How to submit a payment inquiry:

  1. Open Bill Payment
  2. Navigate to the Payment Center
  3. Select the payment in question under the Recent Payments section (if in the past 30 days), or Activity tab (if more than 30 days)
  4. In the Payment Details screen, click to submit a Payment Inquiry and fill out the required details

When a payment inquiry is submitted, we recommend that you let the payee know that PartnerCare will be in contact to resolve any issues for that check delivery. PartnerCare will reach out to the payee, and update NWCU (and you) with each attempt at contact. If PartnerCare is unable to reach the payee, you will receive a phone call, email, and/or message via online banking.

Removing Bills/Billers in Bill Pay

To remove a bill or a biller in Bill Pay, follow these steps:

  1. Open Bill Payment
  2. Navigate to the Payment Center
  3. Click on the name of the Biller and a profile will pop up
  4. Click on "Delete". Bill Payment will ask you if you want to delete this biller from your Bill Pay Select the Delete button.

If Bill Discovery shows you bills you don't want to add, simply click the "Dismiss" link and they won't show up.

How Can I Transfer Funds to Another Bank or Credit Union?

Our Transfer Money to Other Financial Institution service inside of Bill Pay ended May 5, 2021. We have a FREE service right inside of Online Banking called External Transfers that allows you to easily link and send funds to and from your other institutions. Learn how to set up External Transfers.

Use Bill Pay to Get Zelle®

NWCU partners with Zelle® to give you another way to send money to people you trust. Once you've signed up for Bill Pay, you'll have access to enroll in Zelle®, too!

See more on Zelle® here. Read our Electronic Services Agreement and our Bill Pay and Zelle® Terms of Service.