ClearCheckbook Knowledge Base

The Bill Tracker has several different sections that help you view and manage your bills. The screenshot below shows an example of the main Bill Tracker page.

Bill Tracker page layout

There are a few different ways to view your bills and you can switch between those views in the Bill navigation (see #1 above for the location). The different views are explained in the table below.

Bill Tracker Calendar View

Bill Tracker All Bills view

You can add a new bill by clicking on the + Add Bill button at the top of the Bill Tracker page. When the Add New Bill form loads, you'll be presented with three sections each containing several fields which are explained below.

Add Bill form

Bill Details

This section has the basic information for the bill.

Time Period

This section determins whether or not this bill repeats, and if so, on what kind of schedule. The Occurs option is explained in more detail in the table below.

Option	Description
Once	When selected, the bill will only occur once on the date specified in the Starts field.
Repeating	You set a start and end date and then the frequency and frequency type. The full Repeating option looks like this when selected: Repeating option The Repeats Every options let you enter a numerical value in the first box and then select from Day(s), Week(s), Month(s), and Year(s). This option is great for bills that need to repeat at regular intervals. For example, if you needed to pay a bill every two weeks you would first select the necessary start and end dates then enter 2 and Week(s) in the Repeats Every options.
Repeating (Floating)	The Repeating (Floating) option is used for bills that can float around and aren't always on the exact same date but will occur at the same time of month. The full options for this repeating type are below: Repeating (Floating) option The Floats Every option allows you to choose between First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Last in the first drop down box and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Day in the second drop down box. Using these two drop down boxes you can set a bill to occur on something like the Second Friday of each month.

Reminder Options

You can choose if this bill should be associated with a reminder, and if it is, whether it should automatically post the transaction to your register.

Once you've entered all the details for your bill, click the blue Add Bill button at the bottom of the form. When you add the bill, the list will refresh and show that bill if it's set to occur in the next 30 days.

The bill list shows you all of your overdue and upcoming bills and gives them each a label. Each label is color coded based on the severity of the bill due date. The four labels are Overdue, Paid, Due Soon and Upcoming

When you click on a bill it will expand with more information. The bill amount, name and last payment details (if applicable) will appear. The actions you can perform on a bill are Payment History, Pay Bill, Edit and Delete. These actions are explained in more detail below.

Expanded bill example

To pay a bill, find it in your bill list and click to expand it. Next, click on the Pay Bill action.

Click to bring up a Pay Bill form

Once you click on the Pay Bill link you will have two different ways to pay the bill. The first is to use the form to enter the payment details for the bill. When you submit the form, the bill will be marked as paid and the transaction will be added to your transaction register.

The second option is to click the Set as 'Paid' without adding transaction link at the bottom of the form. This will mark the bill as paid without adding a transaction. This can be useful if you already added the transaction into your register the bill was paid from a source that you aren't tracking in ClearCheckbook.

Bill payment form

If you opt to pay the bill by adding a transaction, the form behaves exactly the same as the standard Add Transaction form.

When you pay the bill through either method, the bill will turn green with a Paid! label in the bill list.

Paid bill in bill list

You can view a table with all the payment history for a bill by expanding it from the bill list. After that, click on the Payment History link (shown below).

Click to bring up the payment history

The bill history shows both a visual report and a table view of your past payments.

Bill Payment History expanded

You can easily edit a bill by clicking on the bill to expand it and then click on the Edit link.

Click to bring up the edit form

This will bring up a form with all of the same fields as the Add Bill form but with all of the details for the bill pre-populated. Simply make your changes and save your bill.

Quick Edit allows you to edit a single instance of a bill without affecting subsequent instances of that bill. You can open the Quick Edit form by clicking the Quick Edit link under any bill that has an associated recurring transaction (via the Reminders / Recurring Transactions tool). Remember: This option only appears for bills that have an associated recurring transaction.

Link to open the Quick Edit form

The Quick Edit form lets you change the date and amount for the bill's recurring transaction. When changed, this instance of the recurring transaction will post on the new date specified and use the amount you enter in the Amount box.

Sample Quick Edit form

To delete a bill, click on the bill to expand it and then click on the Delete link.

Click to delete a bill

After clicking the Delete button you will be presented with a few different options. The first option, Delete this due date, will delete only this instance of the bill and leave the rest alone. The second option, Delete entire bill, will delete the entire bill and all instances of it.

Delete options