Bills 2.0

New Features Make Bill Approvals and Payment Even Easier!

Approving Bills Just Got Even Easier and More Efficient!

Approvers can approve multiple bills from their bill approval list!  To approve several bills at once simply check the box to select the bills you want to approve and click "approve". 

If you need to add notes to the bill when approving, click on "Slideshow Approval" and you will see individual bills (including images) and can enter notes and approve or deny each bill. 

 

It is Now Even Easier and Faster to Void Payments

You can now void recent payments from the bill detail screen without having to contact our Operations team.   As long as the payment has not cleared (by check or electronically), payments will be credited to your account automatically or a new check will be issued.

It is Now Easier to Discover and Resolve Checks That Have Not Cleared

It is inevitable that some check payments may not get to a vendor either because of an unknown change in address or problem with the mail. The best solution is to start paying your vendors with ePayments! But, in situations where check payments are still required we have made it easier to review and resolve checks that have been outstanding for too long.

The Bill.com To Do list will show authorized users how many checks are outstanding.

Simply click on the link to review uncashed checks.  Checks that have been outstanding for more than 20 days will be highlighted in red.  You can choose to void and credit the payment to your account or void and reissue the check to the vendor.

Now Receive Automatic Notification of Returned Checks

When a check is returned to Bill.com by the US Mail you will be notified via email and you’ll see a task in your To-Do list to advise you that action is required to continue processing the payment. 

Clicking on this link will allow you to review the returned check information and take action. You can update the vendor information and reissue the check or void and credit the payment to your account.

Increased Controls for Accountant Console Users

A new Staff role for the accounting firm staff which allows the firm to limit what an accounting firm user sees within the Accountant Console.   Staff users get free access to client accounts but cannot view or change client billing options, alter your logo, or add new client accounts.

Note that this role restricts what an accountant user can do in the Accountant Console and does not determine a user's role within a client organization (Administrator, Payer, Clerk, etc.). Accountant users can be restricted as "Staff" users in the console but be Administrators (or other roles) in individual client accounts.

  

 Let us know what you think of these new features!!!!

Enhanced LIVE Bill.com Customer Support

Customer Support has always been a priority at Bill.com. We know that when you have an issue, most often you need it resolved quickly. Unlike many vendors that have shifted towards only "submitting inquiries" via a website and expecting 24 hour turnaround, Bill.com has continued to maintain LIVE support so you can simply pick up the phone and talk with an expert in real time when you need to.

We are now enhancing our LIVE support option to include electronic chat!

We are now beta testing a chat capability for support that is integrated with the product. 

You will be chatting in real time with the same agents you speak with and email today, however you will be able to do it while more easily multi-tasking and doing other work while not being tethered to the phone.

Of course, the phone is still available when you need it.

We want your feedback!

New Feature: Enhanced ePayment Setup

We have made it faster and easier to set up vendors to receive electronic ePayments from Bill.com. A few new features include:

Ability to add a vendor by entering their Bill.com Payment Network ID

Whenever a vendor registers for the Bill.com Payment Network they will now receive a Payment Network ID. You can set up that vendor to receive ePayments whenever you pay them by simply asking them to provide you with their Payment Network ID. This way you no longer have to "invite" them to join the network if you know they are already registered.

When you go to the "Setup ePayments" page for that vendor and you will see the option to enter their ID.

Invite Multiple Vendors to Register at Once

You can now invite multiple vendors to joint the Bill.com Payment Network rather than inviting them individually. From the Vendor page in Bill.com, simply select "Setup ePayments" without selecting an individual vendor and you will have the option to select multiple vendors from a list and send them all invitations at once.

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!

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!

Exciting Award from CPA Technology Advisor!

We are pleased to announce that Bill.com was a recipient of a 2009 Tax and Accounting Innovation Award from CPA Technology Advisor. In their recent article honoring the winners, Darren Root, Executive Editor said:

“The CPA Technology Advisor's annual Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Awards are the pinnacle of achievement for technology vendors serving the profession,” says M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP, executive editor. “This year’s winners and honorable mentions rose to the top of the nominations because they do more than just provide workable solutions. Through ingenuity and fresh approaches to providing solutions, they are front and center in helping accountants energize their deliverables through product, service and training.”

And, Scott Cytron wrote:

Bill.com — Bill.com (www.bill.com)
Bill.com is a paperless, collaborative bill management and payment service designed to digitize and file all client financial documents, allow collaboration with clients via a web-based interface that supports various accounting services, and manage client cash flow and payment timing more effectively.

“Bill.com is the only bill management solution that weaves accounts payables, document management, collaboration and payments together in a simple, affordable service,” says René Lacerte, CEO and founder. “We have a proprietary two-way synch with QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and Intacct that complements the GL software and allows accountants to offer sophisticated services while giving clients a simple user interface.”

Using Bill.com, Lacerte says accountants and their clients can now pay bills quickly and easily, while performing other tasks such as tax preparation and write-up more efficiently, all through improved collaboration, better record keeping and better controls.
“Ultimately, we want to see bill presentment and payment for small and mid-size businesses go 100 percent paperless,” he says.

“To that end, we are working on developing a shared network of large and small vendors so that our customers will be able pay anyone electronically and improve communication between vendors and customers. Our ePayment capability was recently released, and very soon any business will be able to register on our payment network so they can more easily accept payment directly into a bank account, avoiding trips to the bank to deposit checks or paying credit card merchant fees.”

Bill.com is SAS-70 Type II Certified and is offered to the accounting profession in partnership with CPA2Biz, a subsidiary of the AICPA. Bill.com offers discounted pricing for accountant clients, centralized client billing, custom client-facing branding, and an accountant dash-board that provides a consolidated view of all clients’ activities.

Thanks to everyone in the accounting community that have given us so much feedback and support to continue to improve the service. We look forward to offering many more innovations to come!!!

Exciting new features available immediately!

Introducing Bill.com ePayments. Now pay anyone electronically!

Bill.com ePayments allow you to pay vendors electronically (via ACH) rather than with paper checks when you make a payment via Bill.com. Here is how it works:

• Simply match your vendors in Bill.com in a directory of over 4000 of the largest billers (financial institutions, utilities, government agencies, etc.) to enable all future payments to those vendors to be made electronically
• For your vendors who are not in our directory, you can add bank account and routing information to their contact information in Bill.com (this information is encrypted and safe)
• When Bill.com makes payments to any vendor that you set up for ePayments, we will pay them via ACH (electronic deposit). When we pay vendors in our directory the funds are automatically posted to your account with that vendor (you must enter an account number during setup to pay these vendors). For other vendors who are not in our directory we notify them of payments via email.

Advantages of using Bill.com ePayments include:

• Lower transaction fees. Each ePayment costs just 49¢. That's half the cost of paying via a Bill.com check!
• Faster payments. ePayments will be posted to your vendor's bank accounts faster than check payments, so you do not have to schedule as much lead time for processing
• Pay any vendor or individual electronically. Bill.com allows you to make ePayments to anyone electronically — large vendors, small vendors, employees, and other individuals — fully integrated with your bill workflow and accounting system and at low cost
• Guaranteed payment arrival date. Bill.com will display the date that each ePayment will appear in you vendor's bank account. Unlike check payments that can be affected by the mail system, these payments will post on or before the date listed
• Help save the environment. No paper, planes, or mail trucks will be used when making your payments.

When you pay via Bill.com the system will show you the expected payment arrival date

Payment timing is based on many factors. With this new release, when scheduling a payment via Bill.com the system displays the number of business days from the process date to expect arrival of the payment. This will help you when deciding on a process date to maximize cash flow on a bill-by-bill basis.

Increased efficiency (and fewer clicks) for bill payers!

We have made several improvements to the bill payment page to help streamline the process and reduce clicks.

• On the "Pay Bills" page we now show you any notes added to a bill by simply scrolling over a link. Now you can see approver's comments without opening the bill itself!
• When you hover the vendor name on the bill list you will see the check payment address or ePayment information without needing to click on the link
• Bill.com will now alert you if the approved amount of a bill you are paying is less than the bill amount
• For each bill, you will see expected arrival timeframe based on payment type

What's in a name? "Online Payments" are now called "Bill.com Payments"

With the introduction of ePayments, we have made a small change in terminology so there is no confusion between the concept of "online payments" and "ePayments".

• On the "Pay Bills" page, what we used to call "Pay Online" is now "Pay via Bill.com". By selecting this option, Bill.com will make the payment for you. Funds will be withdrawn from your bank account on the Process Date and Bill.com will send it by check or ePayment to your vendor.
• "Record Offline Payments" is now "Record as Paid". You can record payments made by credit card, checks you already wrote, or checks you will print in your accounting system.  You will be prompted on the next page about the details of this payment that you are taking care of outside Bill.com.

When viewing payment types within the system, including audit trails, you will now see payment type "Bill.com" instead of "Online". This indicates that Bill.com made the payment for you either by check or ePayment.

More flexibility in sending documents to the Inbox

Receiving invoices from vendors in the body of an email and not an attachment? Want to just email yourself a message to pay someone and store it as an invoice? It's now easy to do both.

You can now process invoices sent inline in the email without needing to create a separate attachment. Just write (or forward) an email with payment amount and instructions, access it in the inbox, and create a bill to be paid. In addition, you can now easily view the original email message associated with any document sent to the Inbox by clicking the "View email" link on top of the thumbnail.

We have also improved our document display capabilities in the inbox, with support for:

• Adobe PDF (pdf | version 5.0 or later
• Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx | version 97 or later)
• Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt | version 97 - 2003)
• Microsoft Excel (.xls or .xlsx | version 97 or later)
• Images (.jpg or .png or .gif)
• Emails in plain text format or text files

Improved Payment Confirmation

It is now easier to know the status of your payments. On the "Remittance Info" column on the Payments History page, you can see if the check was cleared or the ePayment was sent.

• When you click on a payment, you will see more detail on the payment as well as a cleared check image if applicable
• For ePayments there is no cleared check image, but you will see details on when the payment was made

We hope you like these new features. As always,please contact us with feedback!

Happy Earth Day!

In celebration of Earth Day we thought we would share a cool site from payitgreen.org that allows you to calculate the environmental savings of paying bills electronically. 

Did you know that by paying 20 bills a month electronically (a decent average for many small businesses) you save 177 pounds of greenhouse gas from entering the environment. That's the equivalent of:

• Not driving 174 miles in your car 
• Planting 2 trees (a month!) 
• Saving 24 square feet of forest  

That sounds pretty compelling! Now imagine the savings of all those Bill.com customers making hundreds of payments per month. Those are real numbers. And that doesn't even count the savings Bill.com customers achieve from:

• Eliminating paper bill handling, copying, and filing (not just bill payment) in the office
• Providing a simple way for vendors to send digitized bills directly into the bill payment system without mailing them 
• Eliminating courier/mail and transportation costs routing bills to a remote bookkeeper or accountant (the shoebox of bills has to get to the accountant somehow!) 
• Eliminating internal office mail (especially between remote offices) 
• Consolidating vendor payments (yes, some of this is still paper-based, but its less paper) 

The point is, electronic/paperless bill management and payment is great for the environment and Bill.com reduces our client's carbon footprint immensely. 

Stay tuned for even more carbon savings when we expand our electronic payment capabilities next month!!!!! (We normally don't pre-announce features, but it's Earth Day after all!). 

If you want to get updates on our upcoming new features be sure to follow us online on Twitter and LinkedIn!

Happy Earth Day!

 

New QuickBooks Online Edition Feature

Last night we released new functionality that improves integration between Bill.com and QuickBooks Online Edition!

It is now easier to post offline payments directly to credit card accounts or multiple bank accounts in QuickBooks Online. 

If you make an offline payment in Bill.com and are synchronizing with Quickbooks Online you can now specify a credit card account or any bank account to post the offline expense. You will no longer have to select a single bank account to post all offline payments and then reconcile to other accounts. It is also possible to set the default account for posting offline payments in your import/export preferences.

This means that if you pay bills with a credit card and download individual charges directly from your credit card provider into a credit card account in QuickBooks Online those downloaded charges will be automatically matched with the offline payments exported from Bill.com.

Here's an example of how it works... 

• If you pay your phone bill with an credit card, when you first enter the bill in Bill.com you should indicate the appropriate chart of accounts (e.g., 'communications').
• At this point, the bill can be approved through normal bill workflow. You can pay it using your credit card when appropriate. 
• When you indicate that the bill was paid in Bill.com you specify that you paid it offline and select the appropriate QuickBooks Online credit card account as the "Bank Account".
  
• Export transactions from Bill.com to QuickBooks Online as normal. This will result in an entry being posted for the phone bill in the QuickBooks Online credit card account. 
• When you download charges from your credit card provider into QuickBooks Online, the phone charge will be matched with the entry that was exported from Bill.com. 
• When the time comes to pay your credit card bill, simply enter it in Bill.com specifying the credit card account as the expense account and pay online using the appropriate cash/bank account.
• The end result is that your credit card account will reflect all the charges and payments without any manual journal entries!

Winter 2009 Release Recorded Webinar

The Winter 2009 Release is now live! You can review the features in this previous post.

Check out the Winter 2009 release with this recorded webinar!

We are all very excited about this upgrade because it contains many important enhancements that you (our customers) asked for. Let us know what you think!!!