Paying my mom's caregivers: I live out of state and am taking over paying my mom's bills. Anyone have any ideas how to electronically pay them?

I pay the home care agencies through my bank's online bill pay. It doesn't cost anything. The bank creates the check and mails it. Very easy. If it's an individual person you need to pay, you can do the same thing. Just set them up as a payee like you would for a company (name, address). Or, as others have suggested, your bank may have Zelle bill pay which is instant payment into their bank account - they would set themselves up with Zelle (such as linking their phone number to their account) and you just call up the phone # and make a payment to it. Free service from my bank at least. I rarely write paper checks anymore.

If your bank like most has a billpayer service, all you have to do is enter the month and the day you want ut paid. They will send a check at no cost or postage to you. You might be able to have it transferred right into the caregivers account. You bank can advise you

You didn't say whether the caregiver(s) are employed by an agency or directly by your mom. If it is an agency, you would be paying the agency and the agency would pay the caregiver(s) and withhold payroll taxes, pay the employer portion and report it to the IRS. If it is your mom paying them, then you have to deal with payroll taxes. If it is an agency, I'm sure they would set up an ACH debit or you could pay through "bill pay" if you have legal access to your mom's account online. If the caregiver(s) are your mom's employees, there are some good suggestions for paying them either through a 3rd party payroll service or using Quickbooks to calculate and track payments. The employee must get a pay stub with every payment showing taxes taken. Just make sure you have documentation should you ever need to deal with Medicaid or VA aid and Attendance to show where her money went in the years before her application.

Do QuickBooks and do direct deposit. Maybe Quicken does too that’s a less expensive & easier home program. Or you can pay a small fee with your bank and have them mail a check for you. There’s Zelle and Venmo too. Some banks don’t use them though.

One family who lives Out of State and I in CA have interbank access. Her account is primary, and mine is secondary with my own card to shop with. I may access gift payments when funds are added monthly to buy groceries and other basic necessities. Security is very tight which means I cannot log in without primary authorization.
I'm keeping very careful transaction records in case of possible Medicaid spenddown.

I pay mine through my online bank. That might work for you, if you can get her username ans password.

I pay out of my moms account using Zelle. It’s a service offered by her bank and doesn’t cost anything to send money. If your recipient just has to have a debit card to transfer it to.

No sign of OP?

Krhea17: Your mother should pay her caregivers from her own finances. You need to be financial power of attorney if you intend to access your mother's monies. You'll also need to consider tax implications for the employee (caregiver).

Have them set up a Venmo account. They need to get/have a debit card.

Venmo

Pay Pal; Venmo; On-Line banking if you have it through ACH plan

The payroll service we used only cost us $45 a month. They handled employee withholding and paid quarterly employer contributions to SSA, Medicare, state disability and state and federal taxes. They provided W2s for the employee, and the forms we needed to file. I submitted weekly timesheets; or you can set up a standing weekly, bi-weekly or monthly salary. The caregiver was paid by direct deposit. Gave us great peace of mind. The one thing the service didn't handle was worker's compensation insurance. We found a policy that ran about $500 a year.

PayPal or Venmo are good options.

I think you will need to be your mom’s financial power of attorney to access her funds. A form for you and your mother to sign can be found on the Internet. Then, I would contact her bank and set up bill autopay. I agree with the other answers to hire a payroll service to pay the caregivers.

I would set it up the same way you pay her other bills. I am also out of state and pay many of my father’s bills out of his accounts. I set it up through on line banking and have some on auto pay so I don’t even have to think about it or worry that I missed something.

I believe you can use a payroll company to pay the aids and it’s not very expensive. That way you know the correct taxes are being taken out and nothing will come back to bite you later.

I see a confusion about who is paying for your mother's care. Your funds or your mother's? Your mother's money pays for her care until it's spent down to Medicaid level. Then Medicaid pays.

Definitely do not use Zelle payments as it does not leave a paper trail to save for the Medicaid lookback period besides its fraudulent risks.

I agree with the bank's bill pay feature being the best option. And yes, keep those records. And whether or not you are responsible for taxes may depend on how the caregivers' jobs are described.

I would use your bank's online bill pay feature. You set up the payment info and the bank mails a check to the caregiver. DO NOT USE Zelle! It's a popular scam target and most banks will not cover fraudulent payments, so if you are scammed, your money is gone forever and the bank won't step in. Venmo is only slightly more secure, but not much. If you don't or can't use bill pay, then Paypal would work as long as you use the goods and services feature, not the friends and family (also prone to scams). You want to keep these payments fully transparent for tax reasons, so I'd be leery of using any electronic method except bill pay.

Talk to the young kids. You can use Venmo, PayPal or CashApp. They all connect to your bank and all you need is their “code name” for one of those Apps. If you don’t have an iPhone you can use the App via a computer. You can also use Zelle if your bank has it. Those are all electronic formats. They are safe and quick. You may need to issue a 1099 at the end of the year for all those payments.

You will need to setup payroll account. Are they paid with taxes, etc withdrawn?