Ok, I've switched to e-billing to save paper and money, but..

A_Nice_Englishman

So I've switched to e-billing wherever I can to save paper and money, but how do I keep records of my old bills?

Most suppliers will let me look at old bills on the web, but how long will they go back? What if I no longer use them? Will they still let me access my old bills? This is particularly important if I get into dispute with them.

OK, so I could print the bills out and file them just like I did when I got paper bills. But what if I didn't have a printer, or didn't like the cost and environmental impact of printing them out or didn't have space to file them?

I have installed a piece of free software called cutePDF . This allows me to 'print' the bills but instead of sending it them to my printer it creates a file on my computer which can be read using Adobe Acrobat Reader . Most computers have this installed already but if not it is also free.

Naturally, I take care to back up my bills regularly along with my other important files in case my computer has a major fault or I delete them by accident.

A_fiend_for_life

I don't know if they provide a running summary rather than individual bills. Less to print out. You could email the pdf's to your self as a back up though they obviously persist somewhere.

If you pay electronically so it appears on bank statements and keep the first bill with the original reading is anymore than that necessary? I've not had a dispute that goes back years so not entirely sure.

A_Nice_Englishman

Personally, I'd rather have every single bill in pdf form , especially as it costs nothing and takes no space to store.