Blog

By Lisa Lang, SVP Marketing

Whenever you can’t find something, it’s always in the last place you look. So why not just look there first? We’re serious, by the way. When a business isn’t growing in spite of your best efforts, it’s often because of something you don’t see yet. Often that something is hiding in plain sight. Take filing cabinets for example.

If you’re searching for the reason a business hasn’t grown the way it should, filing cabinets are probably the last thing you’d peg as the culprit. But they’re not as innocent as they appear. The presence of filing cabinets is often one of the main indications that a behind-the-times business is still letting manual, paper-based processes slow everything down.
Meanwhile, a new generation of tech-savvy founders, owners, finance leaders and executives has been using game-changing technology to replace time-consuming paper processes with fast, efficient cloud-based systems everywhere in their businesses.

These “No Check” CEOs have freed themselves and their traveling employees 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 on a desk waiting to be deposited – customer payments go straight into their accounts.

Some “No Check” CEOs don’t even have any filing cabinets at all in their businesses. They’ve found it’s much simpler and more efficient to scan all documents to a cloud-based system and shred the paper.
And because eliminating the paper also eliminates the need to be near the filing cabinets, they’re no longer tied down for long hours at their desks. They never have to come in during a long holiday weekend to search for a missing contract. Any document they need is always instantly accessible from anywhere they need to be, via laptop, tablet or smart phone.

Replacing paper with cloud-based technologies frees their time, makes all their employees more productive, speeds their responsiveness to competition, improves their customer service, drives down their costs, and provides them with unprecedented visibility into business performance.

All of which will change the way you look at filing cabinets forever, don’t you agree? All filing cabinets do is take up a lot of room, mostly to store old papers no one will ever need again. And they’re heavy. Even without the paper inside them, they’re heavy. Like massive anchors, chaining you to your office – and perhaps even preventing your business from taking flight.

Interested in becoming a “No Check” CEO yourself? It’s as simple as moving your manual, paper-based business processes out of the filing cabinets and into the cloud, via services such as Bill.com.

By Lisa Lang, SVP Marketing

They’re texting now instead of sending email. SnapChatting instead of tweeting or posting on Facebook. Some of them have never owned a CD or DVD. Many have never addressed an envelope or written a check – and never will. And by the way, there are 76 million of them in the U.S. alone, with $200 billion in spending power. What does all this mean for your business? 

Demographers call them the Millennials, or Generation-Y (as in “y r u still writing checks?”). Planet-wide, there are about a billion of them. The oldest of them turned 30 just last year. Soon they’ll be running everything. 

They’re wired 24/7 (wirelessly, of course). And one of their greatest impacts on business of all kinds is their continuing, unstoppable shift away from paper-based, manual processes, to the most recent digital technology.

“Remember how impatient you felt the last time you were forced to wait in line while someone ahead of you took forever writing a check?” asked one young finance manager recently. “That’s how we feel when you bog us down at the office with paperwork or send us a form we can’t fill out online.”

No wonder the Federal Reserve Bank reports that check use is steadily declining. Over the last decade, the average daily volume of commercial checks fell from 67.0 million in 2000 to just 26.4 million in 2012 – a drop of 60.5%.

Of course, Generation-Y is just one reason for the rapid demise of the check in favor of electronic payments. Business owners of all ages benefit from an automated cash flow system that allows the business to pay and get paid electronically – all from a mobile device.

Companies that convert to paperless, cloud-based systems such as Bill.com experience streamlined internal processes and substantial cost savings. Management gets mobile access to documents and data from anywhere at any time, enabling more immediate insight into business performance and better decision making. Executives gain more time to focus on strategic priorities.

And going digital isn’t just for payments. While you’re at it, why not digitize all your documents from now on, and store them in the cloud? Eliminate the time spent filing paper (and the time spent searching for misfiled paper) with one-click access from wherever you need to be. Employ the space now taken up by filing cabinets more usefully. Employ your employees more productively. More and more companies are updating their processes in all these ways now.

For all these reasons, going paperless would be a smart decision in any case. But now there’s an added incentive: As more and more of these mobile, digitally active young people become your customers, vendors and peers, their world view is becoming the dominant paradigm. It’s just good business to fit in. 

Get your stuff into Bill.com faster

Drag and drop bills, invoices, and other documents directly into your account. One at a time, or several together. No more choosing/searching/uploading. Just hit the bull’s eye!

Payables - Make it a policy to require approvers

Require approvers for any bill or vendor credit, based on the dollar amount. Require a minimum number of approvers, specific approvers, or both. If the person entering a bill or vendor credit fails to assign the required approvers, we stop them and show your approval policy.

Payables - Did any other approvers change something?

Are you one link in a chain of people who approves bills and vendor credits? Do you ever wonder if any of those people changed something before you see it? Wonder no longer. When a bill or vendor credit reaches you for approval, just click a link to see “who” has changed “what”.

Payables & NetSuite - Categorize the bills you pay with your NetSuite classes

Use NetSuite for accounting? You're about to get greater insight into your bill payments: we now support NetSuite classes for payables. Enter, categorize, and pay your bills in Bill.com. Sync the transactions to NetSuite, then run reports and analyze your spending.

Receivables - Show/hide the payment link on invoices

Most times, you want customers to pay you through Bill.com. Sometimes you don’t. And sometimes customers prefer to pay by check.

For those times when customers won’t be paying you through Bill.com, create an invoice template that hides our payment website. Your invoices look cleaner, customers aren’t distracted, and the Amount Due and Due Date stand out more prominently!

Receivables - Lock in a customer’s commitment

A customer has given you permission to directly charge their bank account or credit card. You enter all the details. You invoice them. You wait for payment. And wait. And wait. What’s up? They deleted the bank account or credit card from their Bill.com account, without telling you.

But not anymore. Choose to lock in their commitment, so that they must contact you before they make any changes.

Receivables - Privacy when one customer is several people

Have any situations where you invoice one customer, but get paid by several different people? For example, you might be a landlord who collects rent from several roommates. Each pays from their own bank account or credit card, but they don’t want their roommates to see or use their finances.

Our solution: when they sign up to pay you through Bill.com, each roommate marks their finances as Private. Then, only each individual roommate sees their respective bank account or credit card.

Receivables - Export details anywhere

We work with most of the popular accounting software, but not all (yet). To export your receivables transactions to software or a system we don’t yet support, use our new Invoice Details Report. You get everything, including line item details, accounts, and departments, in a convenient comma-separated value (CSV) file.

Franchise Industry Guru David Ostrowe To Explain How to Achieve Extreme Operational Efficiency

PALO ALTO, CALIF.— March 4, 2013 — Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash management solutions for businesses, today announced that it will reveal how franchises can achieve extreme operational efficiency through a better understanding of their P&Ls in a free webinar, “Franchise Growth Secrets Hidden in Your P&L,” on Tuesday, March 5, at 11 a.m. PT. Registration is available now at http://cashflow.bill.com/PLOptimization_030513.html.

Many business owners think of accounting as a necessary evil – something necessary to prepare taxes. But to a trained eye, P&Ls reveal critical, actionable business insights, insights which remain invisible to those focused only on the details of day-to-day operations. In this webinar, industry guru David Ostrowe, president of O&M Restaurant Group and the owner of 25 Burger King restaurants, will teach franchise owners how to recognize and act upon the growth keys hidden in their P&Ls, helping them achieve unprecedented success.
Moderated by Bill.com founder and CEO René Lacerte, the webinar will be packed with actionable data and useful insights including how franchise owners can:

• Quickly identify their greatest strengths and weaknesses;
• Zero in on opportunities they may be missing;
• Improve profits and increase cash flow; and
• Make better decisions for the future.

“We have long said that financial data, when properly used, can be a true action hero, and this webinar is proving our point perfectly,” said René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill.com. “We look forward to unlocking the power of the P&L with David, a true innovator in the franchise industry.”

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 digitizes a historically paper-based and time-consuming process, allowing 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. 
About Bill.com
Bill.com is a cash flow command and control system that manages accounts payable and receivable for businesses of all sizes. Offering online bill pay, custom invoicing services, unlimited document storage, collaboration tools, and mobile access, Bill.com's services easily sync to users' accounting software programs and online bank accounts to better control company financials. Bill.com guards against errors and employs enterprise-class fraud protections that current methods cannot match. More than 100,000 users are now getting paid and paying millions of bills, worth billions of dollars, using Bill.com. Financial institutions can now offer these benefits to their business customers by integrating Bill.com with their banking platform. 

By Lisa Lang, SVP Marketing

Did you know there’s a whole new generation of CEOs and CFOs who run paperless businesses and insist on electronic payments instead of paper checks? They have no patience for time-consuming, paper-based processes that drag down everyone’s productivity. They’ve been endowed by game-changing cloud-based technology with certain inalienable rights, such as:

• Freedom from their desks. “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.
• Freedom from bill-payment hassles. They simply scan, fax or email bills and associated documents to a cloud-based service, manage the approval process online, and make payments electronically.
• Freedom from receivables worries. “No Check” businesses rake in their receivables 2-3 times faster, thanks to e-invoicing, automatic reminders, and online customer payments deposited directly into their bank accounts.
• Freedom from cash flow uncertainty. “No Check” CEOs and CFOs get precision control over cash flow, by projecting receivables, payables and balances up to three months out, revealing potential problems well in advance.
• Freedom from check fraud. Unlike checks, electronic payments can’t be intercepted or modified. And unlike paper documents, electronic data can be protected with enterprise-level security systems.
• Freedom from paperwork. Some “No Check” businesses don’t even have file cabinets, because everything is digitized and stored online for secure access from anywhere, any time – so no need to save and store paper receipts, purchase orders, contracts, check stock or paper invoices.
• Freedom to reduce operating costs. Eliminating paper not only reduces processing costs for payables and receivables, digital access enables better cost controls through improved visibility. Getting rid of time-consuming paper-based processes also increases productivity for everyone.

Ready to become a “No Check” CEO? It’s as simple as moving your business processes from the manual, paper-based world to the cloud, via services such as Bill.com.

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.

FREE BILL.COM WEBINAR SHARES SECRET RECIPE FOR FRANCHISE MULTI-UNIT GROWTH

Industry Guru Aziz Hashim Reveals How He Grew From One Store in 1996 To More Than 60 Restaurants

PALO ALTO, CALIF.— Jan. 18, 2013 — Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash management solutions for businesses, today announced that it will explore how moving to the cloud can help franchise owners grow their business quickly and effectively in a free webinar, “Secret Recipe on Multi-Unit Growth,” on Friday, January 25, at 11 a.m. PT. Registration is available now at http://cashflow.bill.com/multiunit_012513.html.

The webinar will feature industry guru Aziz Hashim. Hashim founded NRD Holdings in 1996 with one KFC location, and has since grown the company to over 60 restaurants, including Popeye’s, Domino’s and Checkers/Rally’s. A recognized authority on multi-unit franchise growth, Hashim often shares his experience at major restaurant and franchise conferences, and is frequently quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, QSR Magazine, and other publications.

Moderated by Bill.com founder and CEO René Lacerte, the webinar will be packed with actionable data and useful insights franchise owners can use to:

• select the right brands for rapid, profitable growth;
• address barriers to expansion;
• maximize growth while minimizing growing pains;
• optimize your cash flow with new technology; and
• save thousands of dollars every year and manage risk.

“Aziz offers an amazing wealth of knowledge and experience, and we are so pleased to have a leader of his caliber share his secrets with the Bill.com community,” said René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill.com. “The cloud is such a powerful tool for franchise owners looking to rapidly build profitable businesses in multiple locations. We look forward to offering practical tips on how to get started on the road to success today.”

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 digitizes a historically paper-based and time-consuming process, allowing 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. 

As an entrepreneur, one of the best parts of your job is coming up with great new ideas. And, working in the technology industry, some of the most fun comes each December when you are inevitably asked to speculate on what great new strides our industry will make in the coming year. While I don’t own a crystal ball, I do have a lot of years in Silicon Valley under my belt. So I feel confident that at least some of my predictions will come true this year. Without further ado, I give you my top ten predictions for 2013:

1. Social media will weave itself into the everyday lives of people, especially businesses, in a more pervasive way than ever before.  I know this may seem obvious, but it is worth saying: social is going to become more ingrained this year than you ever thought possible.
2. Businesses will have to find ways to be more efficient with less, especially given the slow economic growth and the expected minor inflation in Q4 of 2013. This means more cloud services, which are known for reducing costs, will be utilized and developed.
3. Mobile will firmly insert itself into the everyday life of businesses.  Businesses will expect more  apps on their phones that take care of business.
4. Desktop accounting software will continue its decline. In fact, the decline will speed up as the benefits of cloud (social and mobile in particular) become expected.
5. The iPad mini will accelerate the ebook revolution.  Because of this, many more magazines will stop their paper versions, especially vertical publications.
6. Investing in social will drop dramatically because social simply cannot be monetized as a standalone product. Instead, companies with real business models will pick up the social and mobile mantle.  
7. Our society will become more and more paperless, and the products that make this happen will grow faster than other businesses.
8. There will be more collaboration across companies.   Faced with economic constraints, companies will learn to use the cloud to easily leverage each other’s innovation and intellectual property  The result will be better businesses and better solutions.  Companies will come together to solve big business problems. And hopefully this spirit of collaboration will even carry to D.C.
9. ePayments will become standard business practice, not just because of the paperless benefits mentioned above but because ePayments help people work smarter and faster.
10. 2013 will be the year of the business payment network. Credit cards will be a thing of the past as a new generation of ePayment-fueled business payment networks emerge. I will share more with you on this prediction shortly so watch this space.

So, there you have my list. If only half of these predictions come true, we will see major advancements in 2013. I’m looking forward to another exciting year and Bill.com is committed to helping drive the innovation needed to make the promise of the cloud a business reality for financial professionals everywhere.René Lacerte, CEO and Founder, Bill.com

As 2012 comes to an end, I am pleased to be surrounded not just by wonderful family, friends and co-workers, but by a bevvy of glistening awards. I mention these awards not to brag, but to give thanks to you, our customers, for making them possible.

2012 was an amazing year for Bill.com. We’ve grown our customer base rapidly, added major new solutions for the banking industry as well as our existing finance and accounting customers, enhanced our platform, and ignited a new developer community. And along the way we have picked up awards for everything from our innovation to our customer service.

Please know that we are thankful every day for all of the insight, feedback and straight-out advice that you, our customers, give us about our business and our solution. You push us to do more, to dream big. You share in this list of awards. Enjoy—and here’s to going for gold together again in 2013!

René Lacerte, CEO and Founder

Corporate Awards

• AlwaysOn OnDemand Top 100 Winner
• Best in Biz Awards
• JMP Hot 100 Software Companies

Product Innovation Awards

• Barlow Research Client Conference Innovation Showcase Award “Best in Show” 2012
• Business Intelligence Group’s 2012 Product of the Year
• K2 Enterprise 2012 Quality Award for Ease of Use
• CPA Practice Advisor Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Award 2012
• Accounting Today’s Top New Products Award
• The Sleeter Group Awesome Add-on 2012

Customer Service

• American Business “Stevie” Awards Finalist

BILL.COM RELEASES NEXT-GENERATION APPLICATION PLATFORM, ENABLES NEW DEVELOPER ECOSYSTEM WITH OPEN APIs

Bill.com’s Market-Leading Sync Now Enables Integrations with Systems Across A Wide Range of Business Apps

Palo Alto, Calif.— Dec. 13, 2012 — Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing, and cash management solutions for businesses, today extended its market-leading integration beyond accounting software, introducing its next-generation application platform. This new platform offers open APIs, enabling developers to natively integrate applications ranging from expense management solutions to complete CRM systems with the Bill.com platform. Developers can now offer finance professionals a complete view of all business processes at work in their companies, and, via Bill.com’s powerful sync feature, they can for the first time ensure that data discrepancies can be quickly resolved, meaning that decisions can be made quickly and accurately based on real-time data.

This tight integration also means that developers have access to an entirely new marketplace for their software via Bill.com’s growing user community   Developers can visit http://developer.bill.com to download a free kit to help them easily write to the Bill.com platform using JSON, the easiest, most lightweight data model available.

“We are thrilled that Bill.com has partnered with OneSaas to be the first company to complete an integration with the new Bill.com platform,” said Jeff Perlman, CEO, OneSaas, which just launched the integration between Xero and Bill.com last month. “By establishing a robust integration between Bill.com and our multi-point service, we can now bring several new business applications to financial professionals seamlessly embedded into Bill.com interface.”

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 digitizes a historically paper-based and time-consuming process, allowing 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.  

The top three features of the new Bill.com platform are:

• Business APIs: These give access to all business objects, connecting all the business processes into CEOs’ and finance managers’ workflows while creating an entirely new marketplace for developers.
• Sync APIs: Bill.com pioneered sync in the payment space, with seamless integration with all leading accounting software, and now Bill.com is broadening its reach and enabling seamless integration to all business solutions, meaning cash flow can finally be managed all from one place.
• Service APIs: Bill.com offers full integration to the Bill.com interface, making it simple and quick to push content to Bill.com so users can manage all their business information in one place.

“Bill.com has had remarkable success uniting disparate accounting systems, finally freeing finance professionals from the old manual, error-prone ways of managing finances,” said René Lacerte, founder and CEO, Bill.com. “Now, we are taking things a step further and extending our platform beyond accounting software, validating how pivotal our customers are to all the business processes happening at their companies. We look forward to seeing the amazing integrations developers will create and to building a thriving ecosystem around the Bill.com platform.”

For more information or to download the free developer kit, please visit  http://developer.bill.com.