By the way, MarineVietVet had it exactly right: Softs can be done and are done all the time, and I'd say keeping reports clean at all times will pay off. Although it was unavoidable because we were in the middle of becoming able to pay off a large amount of debt, my husband got totally burned by being softed at exactly the wrong time (like, days before some huge payments posted.) He was able to repair the damage a few months later for applying for new credit with the company who slashed his credit limit, but ideally, he would have been better off had he not been burned by the softing at the wrong time. He might have gotten a CLI instead of a CLD as a result of that soft, had they done it just a few weeks later.
Moral of the story: If it's within your power to keep your reports looking great, why not do it, then? It's like keeping your living room neat so that when unexpected visitors drop in, they don't see that the table is a mess and the rug is un-vacuumed.
Bob Cratchit is a reference to the overworked and underpaid clerk who worked for Scrooge in The Christmas Carol.
I would discourage paying multiple times just because to me it sounds tedious, though what is bothersome to me is not necessarily to someone else. 
Whatever the OP decides to do I would definitey encourage keeping the utilization low. I like mine no more than 30%, my SO is the same, but different strokes for different folks.
@ChesterPDexter wrote:I don't know who Bob Cratchit is and I never said anything about someone looking over transactions and marking them with a quill pen. I also said I thought twice per month is not a problem. I will only tell you what I heard although, regrettably, I don't remember where so I can't give a reference URL or anything or even attribute a source:
At some point I heard that it is not favorably looked-upon by creditors to pay a credit card bill, for example, once per week (which would equal four times per month or more.) And I remember that the sentiment was that people who pay weekly may have irregular/scant income and pay bills whenever the money comes in as opposed to people of greater means who supposedly are better able to take care of bills once per month.
Don't shoot the messenger - do whatever has been working for you. It's just something to keep in mind if it doesn't make a difference to you one way or the other. It might not even be correct. It might have been in reference to one particular issuer, also (like AMEX?) Don't know; can't remember, but do clearly remember that someone expressed that either as a fact or an opinion at one point. It may be total bunk, but there may be a grain of truth, although where and when that grain applies or applied is a mystery to me.
I apologize; I certainly didn't mean to offend! 
I think it might have to do with the fact that transactions in which they collect a merchant fee are more favorably looked-upon than those which just use their resources (not quill pen, just computer) crediting payments; I'm sure they're glad to get paid, however. (Side note: Activity can be flagged although of course it's computerized - computer programs flag activity, too). For the record, I make as many payments as I need to in order to get my bill paid and I've been known to make three when I have money available from three different sources (but not enough from any one source to pay off the bill, or when something has brought the balance back up and I want to pay it off.) It's way more important to keep the account paid than to worry about how many payments are made to effect that goal. It was just a minor point and obviously one that few think holds any water - that's fine; I was really referring to the behavior of paying every couple of days (I know someone who sends in less than a dollar at times via ACH transaction!), but apparently some do that and maybe it makes no difference. I'm always just trying to help by passing along whatever nugget of information I heard.
Bob Cratchit sounded familiar and I looked it up about a second later; I kept thinking of Jed Clampitt (you know, and the bank... but he wasn't the banker, that was... well, Miss Hathaway comes to mind - she was the interesting one at the bank, right?)
