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How many bills do you juggle each month? Rent or mortgage, internet, cable, electricity, cell phone, credit cards 鈥� the list goes on and on.

For many people, the answer is in the double digits. And every now and then, one of those bills slips your mind and you get socked with a late-payment fee. According to a 2016 survey by financial technology firm Fiserv, more than a third of consumers, or 35% of the respondents,聽paid a bill late聽in the previous 12 months, and 65% had聽a late fee.

Online bill payment, a service offered by many聽, makes it easier to organize and pay your bills, and avoid extra charges. In addition to the聽convenience of paying聽bills聽from your own computer day or night,聽you鈥檒l save the cost of a聽stamp and the trouble of going to聽a mailbox.

Paying your bills online isn鈥檛 revolutionary 鈥� it鈥檚 done by a large聽majority of Americans. But most do it using聽multiple websites and various providers. That raises聽the odds of forgetting a payment.

Instead, think about receiving and paying your bills all through your bank 鈥斅爋ne list, in one place 鈥斅燼nd consider how that could simplify matters.

How it works

The concept is simple. After you log in to your bank account, navigate to its online bill pay feature. Then, you select the bill provider and plug in聽the account number for each of your bills, and authorize your bank to send the payment for you.

Payments can be sent by your bank electronically or via a paper check, so you can pay bills online even if the biller isn鈥檛 set up for it. And you can聽choose a one-time payment or set up a recurring one. You often can select whether to pay the entire balance, just the minimum due, or another amount.

In addition to paying companies such as your electric or cable providers聽online, you can also have your bank send a payment to a person, such as your landlord, virtually eliminating the need for a checkbook.

Setting it up

The initial setup isn鈥檛 quick, but the effort will save you time and headaches in the long run. Here鈥檚 what you need to do:

• Gather all your bills, including account numbers and the addresses to where you mail the payments.
• Enter each biller鈥檚 information into your bank鈥檚 online bill pay platform.
• Choose when to send the payment.
• Select recurring or one-time payment.
• Set reminders to track when each bill is due.

Many merchants and service providers offer the option of receiving an e-bill, or an electronic version of your paper bill. If an e-bill is available, your bank typically will alert you. Then, you can choose to have the statement delivered to your online bill pay center, or continue to receive it in your mailbox or inbox. It can take a few billing cycles for e-bills to take effect.

Why use it

Instead of聽paying your聽聽bill on Chase鈥檚 website, your Verizon bill on Verizon鈥檚 website, and writing a check to your landlord, the online bill pay feature lets you do it all from your financial institution鈥檚聽website.

This helps you organize bills and keep track of due dates. It also makes it聽聽and when, so you can make sure to聽have enough funds available to cover each payment 鈥� which聽is hard to do when paying via several websites.

An added bonus: Many banks and credit unions guarantee that your payments will arrive on time, and will reimburse聽your late fee if they don鈥檛. Try getting that guarantee from the post office.

ONLINE BILL PAY LINKS FOR MAJOR U.S. BANKS

Alternatively, you can consider a separate service such as聽辞谤听. Both allow you to view, manage and pay your bills online. Mint lets you pay your bills through its聽smartphone app. You can also link multiple bank accounts to it, making it easy to see whether you have enough funds to cover upcoming bills.

Kelsey Sheehy and Jeanne Lee are staff writers at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:聽ksheehy@nerdwallet.com听辞谤jlee@nerdwallet.com. Twitter:聽聽辞谤听听听

This article first appeared in .听