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By René Lacerte, Founder and CEO

We’ve all seen (or been) that guy. The one who comes to meetings with piles of papers. The one who pulls out an old notebook to dig up a fact from a conversation held months ago. The one who has piles of receipts tucked away in the corner of his office, big piles of paper that even the cleaning staff avoids out of fear of anything falling out of place. This is a person armed with paper power. Any fact, any tidbit, any bill, they are all within his reach.

So why does he look so worried all the time?

Let’s face it, being the keeper of so many pieces of paper is extremely stressful. How often in a day do you have to think about misplacing a bill or throwing out something that perhaps you needed to keep, just in case an audit might happen sometime down the road? If you are the guy with the stack of paper in the meeting, do you really feel confident? Or are you actually petrified that you might leave something behind?

I’ve been traveling a great deal lately and so I have really had to put my paperless pledge into action. And I have to say, it feels better to be the guy with no back-up needed than the guy with all the answers in tow. Because the fact is that even though I left my binders at home, I can get every piece of data I need at my fingertips, no matter where I am, via Bill.com and the cloud. It’s liberating to actually attend a meeting with no files, no notebooks, no documents in hand.

So, although Earth Day may have come and gone, it’s still a great time to take the paperless pledge, not just for the state of the earth but for the state of your mind.

Try it. Go to a meeting with nothing but your ideas and your smart phone. You will be amazed at all you can accomplish, no back-up needed.

By René Lacerte, Founder & CEO

As I’ve said many times, the reason I started Bill.com was to solve my biggest challenge managing the back office at my first company.  As a CEO and entrepreneur there was simply too much paperwork moving through too many people’s hands to ever have an easy way to manage payables and receivables.  As a result it was pretty hard to have any kind of grasp on cash flow. At Bill.com, we’ve finally solved this age-old problem through our powerful, Cloud-based solution. And now we’re teaming up with like-minded companies to help bring the paperless revolution beyond our rapidly-growing network and out to every consumer in the nation. We have taken the Paperless Pledge and joined the Paperless 2013 movement.

Paperless 2013 is a coalition of companies that are helping consumers and businesses go paperless. Member companies include HelloFax, Google Drive, Fujitsu Scansnap, Expensify, Manilla, HelloSign, Xero, Eventbrite, Lemon, Nitro, Shoeboxed and, of course, Bill.com. The coalition notes that according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average U.S. office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. In 2010, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 334 pounds for each person living in the US, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. Pretty amazing numbers. And it’s even more amazing that by making some simple changes we can not only make the earth a better place, but we can make our businesses more successful.

Because being paperless is not just about saving trees. It is about increasing efficiency, enhancing collaboration, and bringing visibility where it never was before. It is about empowering that new generation of CEOs and finance leaders, the “No Check” CEOs we often talk about, to throw off the shackles of paperwork and replace time-consuming paper processes with fast, efficient cloud-based systems everywhere in their businesses.  Goodbye file cabinets, hello data at your fingertips.
There are a million good reasons to join this movement-- and not a single reason to wait. Please join us and take the paperless pledge at http://www.Paperless2013.org. Once you do, you will receive an email with links to a set of web services that, used together, can remove the need for ‘paper’ from paperwork.  For more information, you can also follow the paperless 2013 campaign on Twitter using #Paperless2013.

But don’t delay. Help us save trees, better our earth and better our businesses by finally freeing ourselves from all that paper. I’ve done it and it feels great. Join me and let’s make our world a better place.

We’ve talked a lot lately about “No Check" CEOs. As a refresher, “No Check” CEOs are a new generation 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.

I truly believe in the No Check CEO paradigm. It’s one I try to live myself. And nowhere has the momentum for this new mindset been more apparent than our recent survey of more than 500 CFOs/finance managers about the importance of mobility.

Our survey discovered that a majority of financial professionals are moving to conducting business via the Cloud and mobile devices. 44 percent of respondents said that the ability to process mobile transactions is a business requirement. When asked what percentage of financial transactions were being conducted via their mobile devices, 30 percent of mobile users are processing more than 25 percent of their transactions on mobile devices while 11 percent are processing more than 50 percent of transactions on their mobile devices.  And in contrast to past conceptions of mobility, 70 percent of respondents felt that the reliability of mobile financial transactions is good or excellent. In addition, 83 percent found mobility to be secure.

Due to this increased confidence in the security and reliability of mobile computing, almost half of the respondents said that they wanted to expand the use of their mobile devices beyond approving transactions to sending reminders, adding notes to documents stored on the cloud and, most importantly, managing their cash flow. 43 percent already see managing cash flow from their mobile device as important and, as we increasingly move into an economy run by “No Check” CEOs, the comfort level and need for comprehensive financial solutions on mobile devices will become more and more critical.

As this survey has shown, the move to mobility represented by this new generation of leaders is already underway. It can be seen in financial professionals’ desire to move not just transactions but account payables, receivables and cash flow management to their mobile devices. We look forward to helping usher in this more efficient and effective way to conduct business.

René Lacerte, Founder and CEO

Bill.com Survey Finds Finance Industry Moving to the Cloud, Embracing Mobile Cash Flow Management

66 Percent of Respondents Are Processing Transactions From Mobile Devices

PALO ALTO, CALIF.— March 7, 2013 — Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash management solutions for businesses, today revealed that a recent study of financial industry leaders showed a growing trend towards mobile financial management, with more than 66 percent of respondents now processing transactions from their devices.

In January 2013, Bill.com surveyed 510 CFOs and finance managers across multiple industries who have automated their payables and receivables process in order to better understand their usage of mobile technology for business financial transactions. 46 percent of respondents were CFOs, 36 percent were controllers and 18 percent were other financial managers. The study discovered that a majority of financial professionals are moving to conducting business via the Cloud and mobile devices. While many respondents only used devices to process transactions while still clinging to manual processes for cash flow management, those who had embraced the Cloud wholeheartedly and moved to mobile financial management have found themselves to be more efficient, effective and competitive.

Read more here.

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

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

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

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

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

René Lacerte, Founder and CEO, Bill.com

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

Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing, and cash management solutions for businesses, today announced that it is now offering its popular integration with QuickBooks Online to those using QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise. Now even more QuickBooks users can seamlessly integrate Bill.com into their financial management systems and create tailored solutions for their distinct needs.

By integrating Bill.com directly into QuickBooks, small businesses can easily deploy Bill.com, taking advantage of the tools, information, and collaboration required to better manage their financial tasks and optimize cash flow. It requires just one click installation from the Bill.com page on the Intuit App Center for any compatible version of QuickBooks. Users can get started in seconds, they just click “Try It Now” and it brings all their bills to Bill.com, and starts paying them online. Also, Bill.com automatically syncs payables and receivables data.

“Bill.com has been a leading solution on our platform, receiving strong positive customer feedback, so we are excited it is now available to even more small businesses,” said Alex Chriss, director of the Intuit Partner Platform. “Allowing our millions of users to fully and easily personalize QuickBooks with Bill.com gives them not only a superior financial management solution but lets them spend more time growing their business and less time chasing down transactions.”

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 innovative 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 bank, bookkeeping, and business.  Bill.com empowers finance leaders to get paid 2 to 3 times faster and save over 50% of the time spent paying bills – all with unprecedented control, precision, and security. 

“Intuit and Bill.com share the common goal of bolstering small businesses’ productivity by easing their financial management burdens,” said René Lacerte, Bill.com founder and CEO. “As a long-time top performing app on the Intuit App Center, we are excited to make it even easier for small businesses to integrate our leading solutions together, letting business owners focus their minds on more important matters.”

When I was young, store-bought Halloween costumes were far and few between. People walked around as ghosts, with eye holes poked out of (mainly) white sheets. Girls were gypsies for years on end. A sports uniform became your go-to costume.

Now, I’m not saying that these weren’t the good old days. And I’m not saying that nowadays kids (and by which I mean, us parents) don’t spend way too much on costumes. But check out that amazing costume your son has already bought for Halloween. Maybe it’s a super hero. Maybe it’s a pirate costume with a bird on its shoulder. Maybe it’s a ghost that actually looks like a ghost. Don’t you wish you could have had something as cool as that rather than hobbling together the same old odds and ends every year? If you had known those costumes were out there, wouldn’t you have begged to get them?

Unfortunately, many of today’s CFOs are still wandering around in “hobo” costumes dug out of their parents’ old clothes. In a recent survey we conducted of 350+ CFOs, we found that when asked what system they currently use to predict future cash flow, 72.9% of respondents said they still use their old Excel spreadsheets, 8.5% use an ERP system, and 8.3% said they just do the calculations in their head. The remaining 10.3% said they don’t use any tools at all, according to the survey.

Why are they still using these relics of the past? The survey found that while CFOs are aware that other departments are moving to the cloud, few realize that similar solutions exist for the finance department.  And CFOs’ frustration with this status quo also came through loud and clear. When asked to name the top three challenges faced by CFOs today, respondents cited the inability to forecast results (51.1%) and manage cash flow (47.4%) as their most pressing concerns.

Now of course there are great solutions like Bill.com out there to simplify CFO’s lives.  And some early adopters are already making the change, with 65.2% of survey respondents saying that saving dollars and staff hours would lead them to the cloud. And beyond the savings of reducing paper (which was either very of somewhat important to more than 85 percent of respondents), Financial executives are discovering that by putting their AP process in the cloud, they can cut their work by more than half and slash the cost by 50% to 70%, a saving that amounts to tens of thousands of dollars for many organizations.

So, go for a trick not a treat this year. Move to the cloud. We promise you, it’s easy. Just like taking candy from a baby. Or, better yet, collecting some good loot this Halloween.

BILL.COM CFO SURVEY FINDS THAT MOVING FINANCIAL PROCESSES  TO THE CLOUD CUTS WORKLOAD IN HALF, SLASHES COSTS UP TO 70 PERCENT

Also Uncovers That Most CFOs Are Unaware of Money Wasted On Paying Bills

PALO ALTO, CALIF. — Oct. 15, 2012 — Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash management solutions for businesses, today announced the results of its survey of more than 350 CFOs,revealing that when financial executives adopt the cloud they quickly realize significant financial benefits to their busineses. However, despite increasing awareness of the cloud, financial professionals still lag behind other department leaders in making the move to the cloud. Full survey results are available in the free whitepaper “For Clarity, CFOs Look to the Cloud,” which can be downloaded from http://cashflow.bill.com/cfo_whitepaper.html.

The survey is one of the first to provide insight into how CFOs are thinking about cloud-based financial systems, whether they plan to implement the systems, and what they see as both the advantages and disadvantages of online tools for managing tasks like accounts payable, accounts receivable, and cash flow. The report finds that while CFOs are aware that other departments are moving to the cloud, few realize that similar solutions exist for the finance department. However, for early adopters, saving money and time are significant motivating factors for companies that are considering a cloud-based system, with 65.2% of survey respondents saying that saving dollars and staff hours would lead them to the cloud.

In addition, when asked how much it costs their organization to process and send an invoice, 38.7% of respondents said under $5 and 32.2% said $5 to $10. In fact, the majority of respondents are likely underestimating the cost because they’re not fully factoring in the price of labor, materials, and other inputs. According to industry standards, the average cost of processing an invoice is actually over $22. In terms of hard numbers, a small company sending an average of 100 invoices a month would cut their expenses from $2200 to $750 per month by using the cloud, according to separate research conducted by Bill.com.  

Still, many CFOs remain stuck in the past, continuing to rely on paper-based processes and Excel spreadsheets to do their work, missing the opportunity to realize time and cost savings by embracing the cloud. Indeed, when asked what system they currently use to predict future cash flow, 72.9% of respondents said they still use their old Excel spreadsheets, 8.5% use an ERP system, and 8.3% said they just do the calculations in their head. The remaining 10.3% said they don’t use any tools at all, according to the survey.

CFOs’ frustration with this status quo was clearly expressed in the Bill.com survey. When asked to name the top three challenges faced by CFOs today, respondents cited the inability to forecast results (51.1%) and manage cash flow (47.4%) as their most pressing concerns. These numbers indicate that financial executives could greatly benefit from tools that provide real-time visibility into the amount of money they’re paying out and taking in, at any given moment.

Some additional findings from the survey include:

• 16.5% of financial executives said that, as far as they know, cash flow management tools and systems are nonexistent in the market; 22% said they know the tools exist but their company doesn’t use them.
• When asked what they think are the biggest challenges in moving to a cloud environment, 64.1% of survey respondents said integration with existing systems, 54.7% said system and network security, and 43.6% said introducing a new process.
• Financial executives are discovering that by putting their AP process in the cloud, they can cut their work by more than half and slash the cost by 50% to 70%, a saving that amounts to tens of thousands of dollars for many organizations.
• Another incentive for moving to the cloud is the chance to reduce the flow of paper bills and transition to a paperless work environment. The vast majority of survey respondents (85.5%) said reducing paper was either very important or somewhat important to them. Only 14.5% said it was not important at all.

According to the survey, these results show cloud-based tools, especially those for cash flow management, are still emergent in the marketplace. For early adopting CFOs, deploying tools that are on the brink of changing the financial industry will give them a competitive advantage as they leapfrog past other companies, due to their increased efficiency, effectiveness, and cost-savings.  

“Early adopters who have switched to cloud-based financial systems told Bill.com they have greatly improved both their accounts payable and accounts receivable processes,” said René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill.com. “We are gratified to see financial professionals take advantage of all the savings and efficiencies that only the cloud can bring.”

Bill.com delivers a complete cloud-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 cash flow command and control system is the only solution that connects users’ banks, books, and businesses, enabling companies of all sizes to finally rid themselves of the cumbersome, error-prone, and highly manual spreadsheets that have plagued finance for decades. Combined with Bill.com’s cloud-based AP and AR systems, it offers the first full picture of a business’s complete cash flow system and empowers finance leaders to get paid 2 to 3 times faster and save over 50% of the time spent paying bills – all with unprecedented control, precision, and security.  

You’ve probably heard about cloud computing by now, but did you know that cloud-based financial systems can improve productivity, increase transparency and accountability and protect your organization from fraud?  Consumers have utilized cloud-based tools for years, but now there are a number of solutions available for all your business applications. 

Recently, Bill.com Founder and CEO, René Lacerte teamed up with Intacct’s Director of Product Marketing, Vijay Ramakrishnan to discuss how cloud-based financial systems are helping nonprofits and other businesses to streamline finances.  Nonprofits, in particular, have a great deal to be gained from the added transparency and accountability provided by solutions like Bill.com and Intacct. 

Cloud-based tools, as opposed to on-premise software, have the added benefits of a reduced dependence on IT, better security and a lower cost.  Not to mention, the cloud affords businesses the ability to go paperless, increasing efficiency and reducing the risk of fraud.

Learn how your business can benefit from cloud-based financial systems.  Click here to replay the webinar, or download the presentation deck.