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Bill.com Adds Industry Veteran to Team, Expands Franchise Support Bill.com. Saves Franchises Hundreds of Hours and Thousands of Dollars per Month

Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash management solutions for businesses, today furthered its commitment to the franchise marketplace by hiring financial industry veteran William Rickman in the newly created role of director of business development for the franchise market. Bill.com is already the choice of leading franchise businesses across the nation, saving these franchises hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars per month.

Rickman has more than ten years of experience in business development in the finance industry. Prior to joining Bill.com, Rickman was Vice President, Strategic Accounts for Bank of America Merchant Services. Rickman's efforts with point-of-service vendors and third-party payment providers were used as the model for his peers in the commercial division. As a sales executive with Fifth Third Bank, he developed solutions for business banking clients, including franchises that automated the payment process, reducing fraudulent transactions and cost of acceptance. Rickman has implemented ecommerce, mobile payments, pre-paid, electronic check and fraud prevention strategies for clients ranging in size from small businesses to Fortune 500. Rickman also ran his own business, where he learned first hand the unique challenges facing small business owners on a daily basis.

"I am excited to use this experience supporting clients facing the same issues I had. Bill.com is the perfect solution for geographically dispersed businesses such as franchises, and I look forward to helping the Bill.com franchise community build more efficient and effective businesses faster than ever," William Rickman, Bill.com Director of Business Development for the Franchise Market, said.

Bill.com delivers a complete web-based financial solution for businesses and accountants, that provides the tools, information, and collaboration required to better manage their financial tasks and optimize cash flow. Bill.com's game-changing technology allows users to access online bill payments, e-invoicing, document management, and automated workflow through one easy system. In addition to seamlessly integrating with businesses' existing accounting software programs, Bill.com provides financial leaders with a comprehensive view of their cash forecast -- making it the only solution that connects a user's banks, bookkeeping, and business.

"Franchise businesses have embraced Bill.com and as a result are reaping amazing time and cost savings," said René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill.com. "We are pleased to extend our commitment to these great entrepreneurs by bringing them more resources, especially William himself. We look forward to seeing what they will accomplish now that they can focus on growing their businesses instead of managing their money."

Well, it’s February once again. Punxsutawney Phil has predicted an early spring, and I predict that, if you’re like most of us, your New Year’s resolutions have gone the way of the groundhog’s shadow. In other words, they are nowhere in sight.

Don’t feel bad. The University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology says only 8 percent of Americans actually keep their resolutions, with 64 percent of them abandoning their resolutions after month one.

I guess it’s just human nature. But, as a businessperson, there are a few resolutions I’ve made which I think you should join me in, if you haven’t already made them yourself. They are worth sticking to because they aren’t hard and they will make your life better. So, release yourself from any guilt about not going to the gym twice a week, and try to stick to these resolutions instead:

• Get rid of paper bills: ePayments really are the future. They are easier to use, simpler to track, more secure, and they give you back needed desk real estate. Forget paper trails, electronic trails are more reliable and accessible.
• Control your cash flow instead of letting your cash flow control you: Rather than rebuilding your cash flow spreadsheet every week or trying to make decisions based on what’s happened in the past, try using our Cloud-based cash flow command and control solution to be able to project your receivables, payables and balances three months out. Taking control of your cash flow means you have a tool for building a great business rather than just another manual “to-do” on your list every week.
• Go mobile: There is still something scary to many people in transacting business over their devices. But, really, being able to pay a bill and make cash flow management choices from a phone not only means that you can do your business in real-time no matter where you are, but that you might even get some “real time” back for yourself. But beware: If you do that, you just may have to pick back up that gym resolution!

So, there you have it, three quick and easy resolutions that will make your life better in 2013. And, rest assured, here at Bill.com, we are plugging away at the resolution we make every year: to make this year the best yet for our customers by providing them with exceptional solutions.

René Lacerte, Founder and CEO, Bill.com

One of our core values at Bill.com is listening to our customers and giving them what they need. One constant request from all of our customers has been to find a way to help make the always dreaded expense report process a bit less painful. While we can’t banish expense reports forever (although wouldn’t that be great!), we are pleased to tell you that by integrating with Expensify, the leading expense management provider, we can now give our growing community an easy, efficient way to manage expense reports.

One of the key benefits of our solution is managing the process of paying bills and getting paid. Now, with this integration, that process extends to employees who can submit their expense reports in Expensify, route them for approvals and pay them in Bill.com. Expensify allows users to easily manage their expenses by importing expenses and receipts from credit cards and mobile phones. With the new integration, employees can now submit a PDF version of their expense report in Expensify, and have it go directly to their Bill.com account. It’s that easy.

This integration is possible because of the exciting new developer platform we announced in December. With this new platform, developers can directly integrate applications ranging from expense management solutions to CRM systems, in addition to accounting systems. The platform offers a complete set of open APIs allowing developers to deeply integrate and provide businesses complete workflows across their systems. As part of the platform, Bill.com offers the first sync management framework that provides developers both best practices and a toolset for dealing with systems integration and sync. This framework allows for every integration to function similarly, so businesses can fully leverage multiple integrations at the same time and in the same manner. What this means to you is that Bill.com can become your hub for your entire workflow, making every work process as easy as cash flow management has become.

This announcement with Expensify follows our initial integration with Xero, which has been well received by our community. We hope you enjoy using Expensify and please remember to watch this space for more integration news—we’re just getting started!

René Lacerte, Founder and CEO

Across the nation and around the world – everywhere tech savvy founders, owners, finance leaders and executives operate – a new generation is using game-changing technology to replace time-consuming paper processes with fast, efficient cloud-based systems everywhere in their businesses.

These “No Check” CEOs aren’t tied to their offices, but free to manage their companies from wherever they need to be, with instant, real-time access to their business and financial data from anywhere, 24 hours a day.

Many never use paper checks, because they send electronic payments instead. Their staffs never waste time printing invoices or stuffing envelopes, or spending money on supplies and postage because they invoice and process bills electronically. And because they also get paid electronically, you never see a pile of checks sitting in an office waiting to be deposited – customer payments go straight into their accounts.

Some “No Check” CEOs don’t even have file cabinets in their businesses. That’s because they don’t need to save and store paper receipts, purchase orders, contracts or the paper invoices their old-school vendors still send – not when it’s so much simpler and more efficient to scan all these items to a cloud based system where they’re always instantly accessible from anywhere, whenever they’re needed for making the right decisions.

But don’t think they do all this just to save trees, although paper manufacturing is the third-largest user of fossil fuels in the developing world, and contributes significantly to deforestation, greenhouse gases and climate-change.

And they’re not doing it just to save space, either, although getting rid of file cabinets, folders, shelves, microfiche systems and drawing cabinets does free up a lot of room, and eliminating the need for off-site document storage does lower costs.

These smart, innovative “No Check” CEOs know from experience that replacing paper with cloud-based technologies frees their time, speeds their responsiveness to competitive change, improves their customer service, drives down their costs, and gives them unprecedented visibility into business performance.

“No Check” CEOs have proved that eliminating paper wherever possible makes everyone in their companies more efficient and productive – including themselves. And because eliminating paper also eliminates the need to be near their file cabinets where the paper is stored, they’re no longer tied down for long hours at the office. They’re free now to access documents and manage their businesses from anywhere they want to be, via laptop, tablet or smart phone.

What has made this transformation possible?  Finance on the cloud (also known as SaaS--- Software as a Service).

This means that instead of an error-prone manual paper process, “No Check” CEOs can automate all their payables and receivables activity by using software which the providers host from the cloud.

The advantages are many. Their data is now more secure because, unlike paper documents and checks, electronic data can be protected with enterprise-level security systems.  The “No Check” CEO can set approval authority and control access, eliminating fraud. And with one click they can sync all their activity with their accounting software and link with their bank account.

Cloud applications make it easy for groups to collaborate, no matter the geographical distance between members. For example the process of approving bills for payment goes much faster when bills and the associated documents are accessed electronically.  And staff at distant offices can all access the same data simultaneously.

“No Check” CEOs never have to pay for a software upgrade, because cloud applications are upgraded continuously as part of the service. Their IT costs are lower, because they no longer have to purchase servers and the cloud provider handles all the maintenance.

Best of all, cloud applications can be used from anywhere, from any device with a web browser – another reason “No Check” CEOs and their staffs are no longer tied to the location where a critical application is available on only one computer.

Interested in becoming a “No Check” CEO yourself? It’s as simple as moving your business processes from the manual, paper world to the cloud, via services such as Bill.com.