What payment methods do you accept?

The more useful version of this question is what it costs you to pay a given way, because that varies and is often invisible. Card payments carry processing fees that somebody absorbs. Bank transfer is typically free or close to it and takes a couple of days. Checks are free and slow, and they introduce a step where something can be lost. For a business watching cash carefully, moving recurring payments to bank transfer is a small saving that recurs every month, and it is worth asking any vendor whether they offer it.

There is a cash timing point worth making while the subject is open. When you pay matters as much as how. A monthly engagement billed at the start of the month is predictable and easy to plan around. Project work billed at milestones lets you match outgoing money to visible progress. What causes problems is a large payment arriving in a month you did not expect it, which is an argument for having the schedule written down somewhere you will actually look rather than in an email from six weeks ago.

Whatever method you choose, keep the record. Every payment to a vendor is potentially deductible and the substantiation requirement falls on you rather than on them. Paying from a business account rather than a personal one, which is worth doing regardless, makes this automatic instead of a reconstruction exercise at tax time.

If a payment method you prefer is not listed, ask. The list above is what is set up, not a policy, and accommodating a reasonable request is easier than the alternative.

Set up whichever method you choose so it repeats without attention, because the administrative cost of a recurring payment is paid every month rather than once. Automatic bank transfer or a saved card on a recurring schedule removes a task from both sides, and it removes the specific failure of an invoice sitting unnoticed for three weeks in a busy period. For anything ongoing, this is worth arranging at the start rather than after the first late payment.

Keep the paperwork attached to the payment rather than filed separately. Whatever method you use, the invoice, the receipt, and the record of what it was for should end up in one place, ideally your accounting software rather than an email folder. That is what makes the deduction substantiable and the year end straightforward, and it is a habit that costs seconds at the time and hours if left until later.