Bills 2.0

Ask Lacerte: Where does data go to die?

Now that I have your attention, let me explain my rhetorical question. One of the topics covered in this issue is about accounting products and how to select the one that works best for you and your clients. While there are many things to consider, I would add the following: Does the accounting package allow your data to stay alive or does it just sit there like a wet noodle, dead on arrival?

Accounting, by nature, is historical and data driven. The recognized “Father of Accounting” was an Italian monk, Luca Pacioli. Pacioli taught accounting to the merchants of Venice, but he was more at home with and interested in math. In fact, one of his students was Leonardo da Vinci. Most of our accounting principles came from one chapter in a treatise on mathematics from 1494. Clearly, our roots in accounting are a bit more scientific than we may have realized and are prone to be numbers focused. Unfortunately, as we have all probably learned by now, “lying with numbers” is a possibility that happens all too often.

When you just look at the numbers, you are missing the bigger picture. As an entrepreneur, I feel that the transaction view is not complete unless you have an “end-to-end” view of what makes up the transaction — the story behind the numbers. For example, knowing that you paid ABC Incorporated last month is interesting, but what about the contract for ABC Incorporated, all the bills/invoices you have ever received from them, all the cleared check images from them and the notes of yellow stickies with comments and directives attached to those bills. All of that information is part of the transaction — the notes, documents, payments and history. Just looking at the numbers is like not seeing the forest for the trees.

Speaking of trees, try this analogy on for size. We have a family tree on my dad’s side that goes back to 1500. When I first looked at the tree, I saw lots of names that didn’t mean that much to me. But when I started to read the story along with the tree, it became far more interesting. And when I got to the last 100 years and had pictures, letters and videos, I got a much better sense of what the tree means. The tree in and of itself is like the data in a typical GL package — interesting but not complete or “alive.” But if you add the stories, the pictures and the videos you get a much more complete picture of the data and the corresponding transaction.

The last 10 years of my career have pointed out to me that the processes behind the accounting transactions are as important as the record of the transaction. To date, accounting software has been focused more on the record and not the process. All of that is changing with the growing adoption of web-based services. As you evaluate your accounting software solutions, you might want to consider the following:

• Does the accounting product seamlessly incorporate the supporting documents? I can’t tell you how many times I have drilled down on a P&L only to be stumped when I got to the original transaction and wasn’t able to see the actual invoice or supporting contract. Ideally, you should get the documents into your solution with an email, fax or scan from you or your vendors/customers.
  
• How connected is the accounting software to your bank? More and more information is getting to the point of being just a click away from your bank. When a vendor calls and asks if you have paid them, it is handy to know the date that the check cleared. Or if a customer says they paid, it’s pretty useful to know the date the deposit hit your account. Given the fast moving pace of online banking, this should be a given in any application considered.
  
• How well does the product allow collaboration between you and your clients? Accounting and the processes surrounding the books are an iterative and collaborative process. All the comments, approvals, denials and questions should be attached to your transaction forever. You never know when you’ll be curious about the details and not have the same folks on the job to ask.
  
• Does the product leverage dashboards that you can customize? We all know that there are basic dashboard items such as cash flow that every business needs, but we also know that every business has its own buttons. The advent of dashboards enables you to customize what your clients and businesses need to run their business. These simple tools give the business owner what they need at a glance and will make them thank you over and over.
  
• Finally, in the age of going mobile, how web-centric is the application? Increasingly, the web is extending the boundaries of work. As many in the valley say, “The noose is looser, but the leash is longer.” I know that today I enjoy more flexibility in where I work than my father or grandfather ever imagined. But I also have the ability to (and do) work all the time from wherever I am. Being able to access my accounting processes from my mobile phone empowers me to chase down that partner or watch the kids perform in a school performance without missing a beat. Combine this flexibility with the power of collaboration for which the web is known, and you have a must-have feature for accounting software.

The last 20 years of accounting software has focused on reporting and easy access to the data. I think the next few years will focus on creating the “end-to-end” transaction view while helping you and your businesses with the processes surrounding the data. In the end, this is where the data lives. In the end, you’ll be surprised that with the right tools your creation will take form and you can claim, “It’s alive!”

Rene

(Originally printed in the April/May 2010 Issue of CPA Technology Advisor)

New Feature: Enhanced Vendor Credit Management

This weekend we added Enhanced Vendor Credit Management to Bill.com. This new feature makes it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to accept vendor credits, route them for review and apply them when paying bills... all through Bill.com and fully synced with QuickBooks or Intacct.

You can now:

• Fax, email or upload credit documentation (credit memos, statements, etc) into Bill.com just like bills
• Route vendor credits to reviewers (including users that do not have access to your accounting system)
• View and apply credits when making payments (you can choose to apply all or a portion of the vendor credits)
• Get reminded of available credits whenever you are looking at vendor information or paying bills

In addition:

• Check vouchers and ePayment confirmation emails will indicate when credits are applied
• Credits will sync with QuickBooks and Intacct and can be exported using our standard reports

Enter credits

• Simply fax, email, or upload vendor credit memos or statements containing credits to your inbox in Bill.com
• Note that credits can now be recorded without needing access to your accounting system... you can delegate the task to an office manager or do it on the road!

Route Vendor Credits Automatically

• Using Bill.com you can have employees (and contractors) who do not have access to your accounting system review vendor credits
  
• If you need others to review the vendor credit, verify amounts or approve them for use, simply add their names and Bill.com will take care of showing them the digital image of the vendor credit and gathering approvals online
• When entering vendor credits you have access to vendor information, vendor contracts, and past vendor credits
• vendor credits can be assigned to GL accounts, jobs, and departments/classes so when they are synchronized with your accounting package they are properly classified

Apply Credits When Paying Bills

• When you pay your bills, Bill.com will inform you if there are available credits
• Simply click on the link to review and apply credits to the payment

Determine How Much of the Credit You Want to Apply

• Simply select which credits (and how much of the credit) you want to apply and Bill.com will adjust the payment amount!

Review and Pay Bills

• Once the credit is applied you are returned to the "Pay Bills" page where you can make the payment
• You will see that a credit has been applied and have the option to make adjustments at any time prior to payment
• When Bill.com makes the payment your vendors will be notified that a credit was applied (on both checks as well as their ePayment notification emails!)

Synchronize with your Accounting Package

• Bill.com makes sure that the vendor credit is properly applied to the bill in QuickBooks or Intacct and credits will be reflected in your chart of accounts
• You can view credits within your accounting package and see where they were applied

We hope you like the new features and will provide us feedback!

Paying employee expenses electronically with Bill.com

Businesses of all sizes routinely reimburse employee expenses. But small and medium sized businesses typically do it the old fashioned way, by filing paper copies or expense reports and receipts and cutting paper checks. This is is time intensive and results in slower payments, and slower access to funds for employees.

While employee expense reimbursement was not the primary reason for creating Bill.com, it turns out that many of our customers use us for just that. Especially now that our ePayment capability makes it easy to pay employees electronically.

In a nutshell, here is what our customers are doing:

• Filling out expense reports using a company's existing process (typically with Word or Excel files).
• Faxing or emailing those forms to their company's Bill.com account along with images of their receipts
• The finance team can then classify all expenses using the general ledger information synchronized with either QuickBooks or Intacct.
• The expense report is then routed to the employee for the "electronic signature" and then routed to management and the finance team. Every step of the process is recorded in the audit log for future reference and all the documents are stored digitally-- the employee can literally shred the receipts and any paper documents.
• Once the expense report is approved, the finance team (or employer) simply pays the employee via Bill.com. If the employee's bank information is present (and it typically is because the same finance team set them up in payroll) then the employee is paid electronically via ePayments, directly to their bank account. If their bank information is not in the system, they get paid by check (without requiring the finance team to print, sign, or distribute the check).
• As an added bonus, the employee receives an automated email when the payment is sent and when funds are available in their bank account. All without any work on the part of the finance team or whoever processed the payment.
• If an employee has a question about payment status, the finance team can look up payment information with a few clicks.

To learn more and try it 30 days risk free, visit http://www.bill.com/businesses/expense-reimbursement.php

New Partnership with Shoeboxed.com

We are excited to announce a new partnership with Shoeboxed.com! As our customer know, we are laser-focused on making bill management and payment as simple and efficient as possible for small and midsized businesses. We are also very focused on listening to customer feedback. One of the things we have heard time and again from many customers and prospective customers is that scanning and even faxing documents can be too cumbersome. Yet, everyone wants to go paperless these days for obvious reasons-- less filing, fewer manual processes, anywhere access to information, and it's great for the environment.

With Shoeboxed, we now offer the best of all worlds... customers can still scan, fax, or email bills to Bill.com or they can simply mail them to Shoeboxed and have them scanned and automatically uploaded to their Bill.com Inbox. And, you can try it for FREE!

Let us know how you like it!