Bill.com Blog

Employee Spotlight - Riding For A Cause

How can I help you today? This phrase that is all too familiar to me and
something that I have been comfortable with saying since I was 16.

As a Customer Service Representative at Bill.com, I have engrained helping into my persona to the point that I dream of it at night. This metamorphosis has gotten me to think about how I can take helping to the next level. I have always wanted to get more invloved in helping people, and now more than ever, I just have the desire to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty. 
   
Lately, I have found that I have wanted more of a challenge with, “how can I help you?” From a young age I used that phrase to propel me into the entertainment world, with theater, writing and directing. I helped people escape into a world that is not their own and made them either laugh, cry, get angry or yes even at times, get bored. But this escape, although necessary at times for all of us, led me to wanting to do more for a cause.

I have taken to peddling help in the form of two wheels - out in the open air and working towards a bigger cause - the AIDS LIfecycle Ride. This journey starts from San Francisco and will end in Los Angeles covering 600 miles in 7 days. Why this cause and this ride? I want to help those that have been affected by AIDS in their life. When I was five, my Uncle Bob died of AIDS, which he contracted from a blood transfusion. I barely had a chance to know him, but what I did know, I really loved. Three years ago my brother Josh decided to participate in the AIDS ride through his church and has committed to every yearly ride since then. So I have joined my brother and have signed up for the challenge to help those that are in need. 
   
I know that the AIDS Ride 2012 will be challenging, push me to the edge of my comfort zone and take everything I have, but the idea that my participation and donation of $3000 can help make a difference in somebody’s life has really made a profound difference already in mine and that is what is so rewarding.

If you are interested in learing more, please check out the AIDS Ride website: http://www.aidslifecycle.org, find a rider, donate your money or your time and ask yourself, “How can I help you today?”

Thank you for your support, David. @davidcmcguire

Employee Spotlight - Behind the Scenes at Work & Play

As an Operations Specialist at Bill.com I do a lot
of behind the scenes processes: issuing voids, reviewing end of the day, confirming ACH (Automated Clearing House) files, issuing refunds etc. Some of you may ask what the heck do ACH files, refunds and voids have to do with my personal life. Well, for the past 14 years, every Sunday from 6pm to 9pm I dance with a tap company called Tap Explosion. 

On a annual basis we put on a performance to show off our talent as tap dancers and honor the tap masters from the past.

Many of those that come to see us don’t know what goes on behind the scenes of a show. Besides managing the event and going to rehearsal every Sunday, many of us in the group, practice with each other during the week and on the weekends. We work to find costumes for the 16 members of our group, create flyers, choreograph numbers,
find the right music....the list is pretty long.

This year Tap Explosion has decided to do a fundraiser for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) research as an honor to a close friend of our dance teacher who lost her three month old daughter to SIDS. Throwing this event is one of the ways we have decied to show our support for the moms who have lost their children to SIDS and the team feels really charged about it.

On top of learning new dances for our big show, we are re-learning dances that Tap Explosion has performed in the past. Many of you only see the magic of my behind the scenes work at Bill.com, but if you would like, we would love to have you come to the show and see the magic of all of the dancers! Plus all ticket proceeds (and donations) are going to ASIDSI (American Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Institute). Please help us find a cure.

Thank you for support, Margot.

For details on Tap Explosion's show, download the PDF here

Event Date: August 28th 2011
Time: 2PM and 5PM
Location: Historic Hoover Theatre
San Jose, CA 

 

4 Questions for our Paperwork Monster

Q. How did you get into your line of work?
I was literally born into it. There are some that interview to be a monster and still others that are monsters and don’t even know it -- those guys are fun -- but more often, its a family business and you don’t grow up knowing anything else.  It is all I ever wanted to be. Plus, since I only have one eye, I was disqualified from being a pilot. I tried to tell them it was a LARGE eye but apparently perfect eyesight is correlated with having two functioning eyes.

Q. What have you learned through the school of hard knocks?
I actually went to the school of Things That Go Bump in the Night. The School of Hard Knocks seemed so Spartan to me. I switched careers after I graduated with a degree in Sacreology, due to the economy and a lack luster desire to truly scare people. I still needed to work so I examined options and realized Paper! There will always be paper, I can definitely cover people with it, make their lives miserable, often in stealth, but completely in ways they don’t even realize. First, I started by making big sloppy messes, but I realized people were on to me, and then there was the influx of heavy-duty shredders making my life miserable – you know those shredders that became really popular right before the big SEC crackdown. So I realized the big monster in the room, that people miss until its too late, is inefficiency. So I started wasting people’s time, having them run pieces of paper from desk to desk, sometimes losing them in the process. I made it hard for them to pay their bills and receive payments from customers. I was really good at this – may I say, legendary!

Q. What keeps you up at night?
Well, I don’t stay up at night too much anymore but every once in a while, I hide under a bed for fun.  Just for old time’s sake, you know.  

Q. How has Bill.com helped your business chase its dreams?
I am similar to a reformed computer hacker. Often, businesses hire them to learn how to protect themselves against online attacks. So when Bill.com approached me about coming over to the other side, I was intrigued. Once I met the people that worked there, I realized there’s a new breed starting to develop. These people aren’t afraid of paper, they welcome the challenge of taming it, making it valuable and accessible online, and so, I realized I had to change to meet the times. Despite my size, I am actually pretty flexible. I can see the writing on the wall, you know with the big eye, so I changed. I do carry interesting things in my briefcase to work every day to Bill.com, especially since I cannot have paper in there! But is not one of today’s question, so I think I will save it for a later surprise!

Add the Paperwork Monster to your Twitter Feed: @Pprworkmonster

 

Note: 4 Questions is a new feature on the Bill.com blog where we will ask the same 4 questions of a different Bill.com customer (except in the case above that features our Paperwork Monster). Given the tremendous passion and can-do attitude of small and mid-sized businesses, we believe these same four questions will result not in repeat answers, but in interesting insight into many different journeys. Want to be profiled? Tweet us at @billcom and let us know!

Case Study: Niche Modern

Challenge
Jeremy Pyles and his wife started a humble design company in 2003 called Niche Modern. They soon found that their glass-blown lighting was flying off the shelves, and they refocused their business on blown glass for the hospitality and residential industries. Niche Modern doubled in size each year from 2003 to 2008, and it continues to grow at a rapid pace. However, as the main product designer, Pyles was pulled away more each day from designing new blockbuster products and into the bill payment and financial management of his booming company. Even more, Pyles needed time to be a husband and father of two.

Pyles needed a way to streamline his bookkeeping so he could focus on making the great products that were growing his company. He needed a trustworthy option, which cancelled out the idea of throwing a new hire into the mix. He already used QuickBooks to manage inventory, but without workflow capabilities to have others approve and pay bills, Pyles’ accounts payable hat was becoming a full-time helmet.

Solution
Every option was on the table for Pyles as the pressure was mounting to stay focused on design. He tried the online bill payment from his bank, but ran into issues with routing numbers and not having enough overall management. Pyles’ web searching led him to a Bill.com YouTube video, and after a short-test drive he immediately fell in love with the service.

To ensure Niche Modern’s financial future, Pyles and his wife maintained oversight of reviewing and approving vendor bills on Bill.com. They integrated QuickBooks with Bill.com, and brought an assistant in to manage smaller daily bills like shipping and other administrative tasks.

Result
With so much at stake, Bill.com not only changed Niche Modern’s business, it changed Jeremy’s life. Jeremy’s time on accounts payable went from 20 hours per week to 2. This meant more time during the day for customers rather than bills, and more time on weekends for his family. With 48-hour payment turnaround, relationships with vendors improved and Jeremy gained real-time cash flow oversight. New contractors were added in easily, and Jeremy finally broke free from the paper check hassles he hated – losing checks, double sending, stopping payments, etc.

Jeremy notes the Bill.com relationship feels similar to doing business with family. Niche Modern is working closely with Bill.com developers to solve new and unique challenges. They are one of the original users of Bill.com Zen, an on-demand service that automatically scans and enters relevant billing information to the Bill.com payment system. Pyles is also working with Bill.com on a solution to accept credit card payments, and streamlining other payment needs specific to his business.

“As a small business owner, Bill.com not only saves me time and money, but it gave me my life back!”

To learn more about Niche Modern, catch up with them on Twitter, Facebook, or on their website: www.nichemodern.com

@Billcom Customer Tip - Bill.com Tames the Paperwork Monster!

Drowning in paper and unfiled company documents? Bill.com has many great features that allow you to manage your Payables and Receivables online. In addition, we also provide free document management features with either our Payables or Receivables services.  

Many customers use Bill.com to store nearly every piece of paper their office might have previously held in a file cabinet. These include things related to paying bills, like contracts and vendor information, and also company information like prior year tax returns, important communications and other documents. You can organize these using folders (yes folders!) you can set up on the Documents tab. You can also restrict access to your Company documents using our powerful built-in custom role features for all the users of your Bill.com account.  

We continue to improve our document management features, and are currently offering our Receivables customers the ability to share documents and collaborate with their own customers.

Contact us at support@hq.bill.com to learn more!

Add the Paperwork Monster to your Twitter Feed: @Pprworkmonster

 

Paper to Cloud...paying bills over the years

Before there was online bill pay, online statements and mobile banking there was only paper. Paper checks. Paper stamps. Paper Envelopes. The way the silent generation, baby boomers and even Gen X paid bills.

Check writing was the only game-in-town for these generations, but now more than 77% of these folks are active with Mobile computing. Couple that with the cost of postage and checks constantly rising, the check writing process thankfully is going down the road less traveled. Although, some from these generations continue to cling to the familiar and mundane process of check writing, it is expected that the check will die a quiet death.

Whether some are afraid of the “big bad Internet”, fraud or just don’t know how to use an online bill pay service, we are here to share with you that there are more convenient and less expensive ways to pay bills.

Here are some pros of online bill pay:

• Convenience
• Saves money and time
• Safe and secure
• Offers peace of mind

As a Generation Y’er, there was a short period where I used checks, but now I use my Bill.com account.  I love the convenience of paying my bills from anywhere that has Internet and even from my mobile phone.  When I use my Bill.com account, I don’t have to hand out my account number, my personal information or my signature.  And best of all I don’t have to buy stamps or checks!

Employee Spotlight: A Good Egg for a Good Cause

What came first, the chicken or the egg?  Well for Judie McCarthy, Director of Accountant Relations at Bill.com and Advanced Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor,  on her 3 acres it’s the chicken, actually 21 chickens.

Several years ago during a routine visit to our local hardware store my husband returned home with more than nails and duct tape, he also had a small box that contained 12 baby chicks. His thinking was “our granddaughters will have fun playing with the chickens when they visit and we can have fresh eggs anytime.”  Over the years our flock has grown from the original 12 to 21 that produce on average 10 dozen eggs per week. With only 2 of us that’s a lot of scrambling so we decided to donate the eggs to a worthy cause. 

Originally we started giving some to my dad, an esophageal cancer survivor who had been weakened by surgery and treatment found that eggs were easy to eat and provided him with great nutritional value, over time we noticed that he was getting stronger and had more energy. His doctor attributed this to the high level of vitamins and protein in the eggs. We thought if they were good for him that other seniors may benefit from our eggs as well.  We began sending 5-7 dozen eggs a week for him to distribute to others in his retirement community that were recovering from illness or just needed an easy to eat source of protein.  The seniors love the taste and benefits of eggs from our chickens. They are free range and are not injected with hormones or antibiotics.

Thanks to a 2007 study by Mother Earth News that took egg samples from 14 different flocks, there is some beneficial data to back up the claim that free range or pastured eggs are better for you. Here are some of the benefits:

1) Less Cholesterol: According to the study there was 1/3 less cholesterol in the free-range eggs. This is good news for an egg lover like me who also has a family history of high cholesterol.

2) Less Saturated Fat: Mother Earth News found 25% less saturated fat in the pastured chicken eggs. Saturated fat is a buzz word in the food world now, with reason, so anything with less is always a plus.

3) More Vitamin A and E: Vitamin A helps in all sorts of areas including vision, skin health, immune function, and so much more. There isn't as much information out there on Vitamin E, but I think we can assume it does have a purpose.

4) Extra Omega-3s: We are constantly learning more about the Omega-3s, but there has already been a lot of research pointing to benefits for people with heart concerns. Double the Omega-3s is a good thing!

5) They Just Taste Great: I suppose this is more of an anecdotal thing, but I believe pastured eggs just plain taste better.

Other great benefits of raising chickens:

• Chickens are inexpensive & easy to purchase and care for
• They produce valuable fertilizer
• The will eat any organic garbage

All in all it doesn’t matter whether it is the chicken that came first or the egg. What matters is that the eggs are being enjoyed and used for a good cause.  My husband had a great notion when he brought those baby chicks home. We were able to help others and we never missed out on a good breakfast!

Bill.com Rides Strong During Bike to Work Week!

After a successful Earth Day Electronics Recycling Drive, Bill.com signed on for Bike to Work Week, challenging employees to reduce their daily carbon footprint during the week of May 9^th. 

“The purpose of this activity is to get people over the hump of trying a different commute style,” said Susan Dunn, General Counsel at Bill.com. “People can see if it works for them or not.”

This isn’t a temporary activity for Dunn. She rides her bike to work regularly and encourages others who live in the area to participate. 

Bike to Work Week is not only for bike riders.  Bill.com encourages employees who live out of the area to carpool, take Caltrans or ride the bus.  This year, more than half of our employees participated and saved over 1500 miles in one short week.

“I’m glad to see so many employees on-board with this event, said Jason Bancroft, Account Manager.”  “It helps people make more conscientious decisions about their weekly commute.”

At Bill.com we are passionate about eliminating paper (and wasted time) from every aspect of the payment and invoicing process. And with individuals making small efforts by changing their commuting, payment, and invoicing process, we work together to build a more sustainable environment. We are proud to work with so many businesses that are chasing their dreams, and not paper - and helping the environment at the same time!

Did you participate in Bike to Work Week? What else does your company do to help the environment?

A Special Earth Day Thank You to Our Customers!

BIll.com wants to take a moment to thank our customers for embracing the cloud and going paperless! Here are some ways they are saving the environment.... 

On line Payments

Did you know that Bill.com Customers are paying over $2B in bill payments annually and are eliminating millions of paper documents, stamps and envelopes every year? That's saving some real trees! Not to mention headaches! 

Document Storage

Bill.com Customers have been taking advantage of their unlimited documents storage and have uploaded: bills, contracts, proposals, billing statements, tax forms, invoices, you name it. They no longer print, copy and file documents. Everything is stored in digital files and available at the touch of a click from anywhere (including mobile devices!).  

Electronic Vendor Network

Bill.com's vendor network allows our customers to easily setup vendor and customer payments via Bill.com ePayments. They can now pay any vendor or get paid by any customer 100% electronically! No more paper checks. No more stamps and envelopes. No more trips to the bank for either our customer or their vendors! Think of the fuel savings (and the saved time)!!!

At Bill.com we are passionate about eliminating paper (and wasted time) from every aspect of the payment and invoicing process. We are proud to work with so many businesses that are chasing their dreams, and not paper. And helping the environment at the same time!

Happy Earth Day Everyone!

The Bill.com Team

Countdown to Earth Day

Friday, April 22 is Earth Day, the 41^st year of celebration for our planet. This year’s theme is A Billion Acts of Green®, celebrating over 45 million personal, organizational and corporate pledges to live and act sustainably.  How can your company get involved? Here are just a few ways:

• Organize an earth day hike, walk, run, swim or bike outing.
• Call your local Parks Department and offer to plan a park clean-up, invasive plant removal or tree planting.
• Join forces with other local businesses and environmental organizations and host an eco-fair to inform the public about ways they can build a greener future. Schedule it to coincide with your farmers market or other popular local event.
• Call a school or community center and offer to build and plant a vegetable garden and help maintain it during the year. Donate the supplies and your employees’ time.
• Host a competition for the best idea to reduce your company’s carbon emissions and support sustainability. Reward the winner with a paid day off plus the gratification of seeing their idea realized. Or invite your customers into the competition via Facebook and reward the winner with free products or services from your company throughout 2011. Check out our Earth Day logo competition!

Whatever you decide to do to recognize Earth Day, consider registering your planned action at www.earthday.org/earth-day-2011. Your employees will be even more motivated knowing they’re participating in the largest-ever environmental service movement.

And if you’re using Bill.com, pat yourself on the back. Digitizing your bill payment processes saves paper, ink and mail truck emissions.

Happy Earth Day, Everyone!

Franchise Case Study: Steve Paperno, Founder and CEO of Sharky’s

Bill.com is excited to be working so closely with so many Franchisees! Over the next few weeks we'll post some case studies showing the many ways they are benefiting from Bill.com. Do you have stories of your own? Share them with us! Enjoy!

Sharky’s Woodfired Mexican Grill Franchisor Steve Paperno is on a mission to “change the way the world eats” by providing great tasting Mexican food made from organic and natural ingredients. Paperno says his priorities are to focus on his guests and franchisees, which is why he is such a supporter and advocate of Bill.com. The solution has enabled Paperno and his franchisees to minimize the amount of time they spend on accounting. Paperno says, “The more time I spend on my business and the less time I spend in the office, the more of an impact I have on the overall guest experience.”

Paperno, whose parents owned a deli and whose own first business venture involved gourmet chocolate-covered bananas, was not always focused on light, healthy eating. He worked at his parents' traditional restaurant until he was 18, when he started Top Banana, a manufacturer of dipped bananas sold at amusement parks, zoos and supermarkets. He visited banana plantations in Central and South America and at one time even moved his manufacturing facility into Mexico. By the time Paperno sold Top Banana to Chiquita Banana, he was 28 and hooked on the "organic, wood-fired food" he'd found south of the border.

"I couldn't find the great tastes of Mexico that fit my healthy, athletic lifestyle," Paperno said, "so I decided to start my own restaurant." The first Sharky's Woodfired Mexican Grill opened in Sherman Oaks in 1992, with fresh food prepared in an open kitchen, on a wood-fired grill and a stone-fired oven. Paperno now has 19 locations with 12 more on the way, but serving only fresh food created another problem. All those daily deliveries of fresh-caught fish, natural chicken breasts and just-off-the-tree avocados meant that his Sharky’s restaurants generated a mountain of vendor invoices.             

Store managers collected the invoices into envelopes that they sent to Sharky’s corporate offices each week. "Our in-house accountant had to go over about 125 bills each week, to make sure that everything was correct, then passed them on for my approval," said Paperno. When it was time to pay each invoice, the accounting office cut a check, which someone stapled to the invoice and put on Paperno's desk for signing. Each signed check was then folded into an addressed envelope that someone had to seal shut and run through a postage meter.

Paperno says the process wasted both time and paper. "I looked for a way to streamline this process, but when I came across Bill.com on the Web, I was skeptical that it could work with our invoices, which come in all sizes and shapes," said Paperno. "I tried it out in one of our restaurants and now I'm an advocate."

Today, Sharky's managers scan all invoices into the Bill.com system, which integrates them into the company's QuickBooks program and passes them on for corporate approvals. The accountant adds a payment date and Bill.com pays each vendor at the right time, via check or electronic transfer. "We're saving hours of employee time," Paperno says, "and there are no stacks of paper on my desk. Well, at least not bills.”

Paperno started franchising in 2001 and has 12 more stores under contract to be built. Fast, casual Mexican restaurants are popular, and Paperno admits he could have expanded more quickly. "But I'm picky and want to sell franchises to only the right people, who share my passion for organic, natural foods and  fit into the Sharky's culture," he said. And Paperno will not approve a location unless it falls within the distribution area of the companies that provide the chain's signature fresh food. So far, that means he will only sell franchises in California, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Washington. 

“The reality is paperwork, just like e-mail, has become a huge distraction that has no benefit to our guests,” said Paperno. “We want our franchisees to focus on what really makes a difference like hiring the right people, impeccable training and culture building, along with getting to know their patrons. What we do not want is a franchisee who is burdened with paper work and not focused on building sales by providing great tasting food and exceptional service.”  Now that Paperno has experienced Bill.com, he will be implementing it into his franchise system making it part of the accounting training for new and old franchisees alike.   

Secrets to Working from Home

Working from home.

Utter these three words in any corporate setting and people will swoon at the thought. Freedom from fluorescent lighting, bad coffee and incessant distractions. Saved gas costs, childcare expenses, and dry cleaning bills. What’s not to like?

For those of us who do work from home, we know the reality can be far from perfect. Work/life balance is tricky when the lines between our professional and personal selves are so blurred that no clear point of demarcation exists.

How to master it, then? Take a clue from seasoned at-home workers who share their secrets for success:

1. Space it out

Just because you can work anywhere doesn’t mean you should. Wifi may span your whole house, but dedicate one room to working and outfit it as a functional workspace. When you cross the threshold of that room, your brain knows you’re now “at work.”  

 2. Keep office hours

 They don’t have to be 9-5, but do commit to a regular work schedule that syncs with your natural work rhythms and your boss’ expectations. It’s harder to justify running out for coffee if you think it will make you “late” for work.

 3. Protect your back

The average worker sits 5-6 hours a day. Don’t rely on a dining room chair or other makeshift solution to keep you comfortable. Invest in a high-quality office chair with back support.

 4. Divide your digits

Have your office calls forwarded to your cell phone. If the home phone rings during your office hours, don’t answer it. After all, you’re at work. And if it’s real nose-to-the-grindstone time, silence both phones, IM, and email notifications.

 5. Take a break

More than one, actually. Take a 10-minute break for every hour you work. Step away from the computer and walk around the block or do some simple stretches. Going for a glass of water every hour can ensure you get the recommended eight glasses and get you out of your chair.

6. Go Paperless.

Paper stacked in an office is unsightly. Paper stacked in your house is a tragedy waiting to happen. Scan and destroy papers. Pay your personal and business bills online. Do not store any check stock in your house. And make sure you invest in a good paper shredder!

 

And if you’re a boss considering a telecommuting for your team, here’s a good reason to try it out: employees are proven to be more committed to companies that allow them to have flexible schedules.

Does your company allow work-from-home employees? Are you one? What tips would you offer other companies making the leap?

Small Business Fraud: 8 Ways to Protect Yourself

Fraud is big business for those who prey on small companies and accounting firms. Because many  businesses have no prevention tools available, they are disproportionately victimized.  Data from the 2010 Report to the Nations from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners is mind boggling:

• Survey participants estimated that the typical organization loses 5% of its annual revenue to fraud. Applied to the estimated 2009 Gross World Product, this figure translates to a potential global fraud loss of more than $2.9 trillion.
• Small organizations are disproportionately victimized by occupational fraud. These organizations are typically lacking in anti-fraud controls compared to their larger counterparts, which makes them particularly vulnerable to fraud.
• Frauds lasted a median of 18 months before being detected.

Here are 8 ways you can beat the odds. If you’re a Bill.com customer, either a small business or accounting firm that serves small businesses, you’re already at an advantage on all counts!

1.Establish prevention procedures: Be aware. Identify key areas where your business or firm is most vulnerable and know who is accountable for each. Determine the types of fraud that may occur and how they would likely be concealed. Then establish internal controls to keep these possibilities from becoming realities.

2. Go paperless. Every bill or check lying around the office is a security risk. Going paperless with your bill receipt and invoicing will prevent “lost” bills and invoices and reduce the risk of manipulation and information theft. You’ll also get an audit trail so you know exactly who accessed, viewed, or changed a bill.

3. Enforce separation of duties: Clearly define user access to the data, ensuring

single users do not authorize, process, and record financial transactions within the business. For example, an employee who enters bills into the accounting package or updates vendor remittance information (their address) should not have the ability to authorize payments for those bills.

4. Automate work processes: Enabling different members of your staff to access bill and invoice workflow is critical to your business or firm’s productivity. But automation is critical. By automating reminders and an audit trail, you ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and that people who are not supposed to be part of the process are kept out.

5. Enforce payment controls: By segmenting role-based controls, you make sure that no one person has access to information and the ability to edit accounting data (vendor addresses, etc.). Separation of the approval process from payment and of data entry from payment processing is key.

6. Eliminate checks (incoming and outgoing): A single check contains every piece of information needed to access your money. By doing away with paper checks entirely, you protect your business or firm account numbers, eliminate risk of lost, stolen or manipulated checks. By receiving payments electronically you prevent trips to the bank and protect against checks being improperly deposited. Problem is, it isn’t very easy to get rid of checks if all you have are services from your bank. Bill.com makes it easy for you to pay anyone, and get paid, electronically.

7. If you have to pay by check, don’t do it yourself.  There are still times where you will need to send checks to vendors.  If you have to do it, use a service that protects your business. For example, Bill.com sends checks on your behalf, hides your bank account information, and provides positive-pay check manipulation protection (something a business could not easily do for themselves).  Bill.com also assists with audits by automatically uploading cleared check images (both sides!) and storing them indefinitely.

8. Perform more regular internal audits: Automated systems make regular audits much easier, creating an online audit trail with full remittance data, cleared check images and approval confirmations.

Want to learn more? Check out our recent webinar presented in conjunction with CPA2Biz, a subsidiary of the American Institure of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and Jason Blumer, CPA and founder of the THRIVEal+CPA Network.

 

Why store it when you can scan it?

No wonder the show Hoarders is so popular right now. Turns out there’s a little keeper in all of us. According to the new book What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, there are more than 53,000 personal storage facilities in the U.S. – more than seven times the number of Starbucks.

About 30% of the storage boom comes from businesses storing things like payment records, office equipment, and inventory.

The cost?

On average $99 - $195 a month.

That’s a whole lot of square footage eating away at your bottom line. If you’re a Bill.com customer, you can minimize costs like these. How? By taking advantage of your digital filing cabinet. It’s unlimited. Just email or upload Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint, image files, or even plain text emails to us, then file them however you like online. They don’t even have to be work-related. You can set up personal files (that you control) for a screenplay you’re writing, personal tax returns, your college thesis, your wedding photos – anything at all.

So the next time you drive past a storage facility, smile! You’re not letting boxes of stuff box you into a $99-a-month corner.

Time Saving Tip: Batch many documents. Eliminate stacks of paper in seconds.

Let’s say you have seven invoices, three vendor credits and some estimate paperwork to send to Bill.com.

You could send them one.

By one.

By one.

By one.

Or you could send them all at once in a single batch!

Yes, it’s true. Many users are thrilled to realize that Bill.com lets you send in batches of unrelated documents. Simply fax them all together or scan them as a single file. Then you can go through, page by page, and process each document individually. You can even skip pages and go back to others as you wish. Anything you don’t get around to processing? It will automatically stay in your inbox for you to tackle later.

Better yet... with Bill.com Zen we will split out all the documents and enter all the data for you automatically! It's literally zero effort to file and index all those financial documents piling up on your desk. And you'll avoid data entry (we sync it right into QuickBooks for you!). See why we call it "Zen"?

We even store all your documents in their native format. Click “View Original” when viewing a document and it will open up your document in its native application.

Cool, huh?

So see that stack of paper on your desk? Pick up the whole pile and fax or scan it on over!