Bill.com Frequently Asked Questions

How does Bill.com offer me more than consumer online bill payment?

Bill.com addresses the needs of the entire business bill payment process, not just paying online. This is much more complex than consumer online bill payment for the following reasons:

Business bill payment involves more people... at a minimum the business owner and the accountant. In larger companies, as many as 20% of the people in the company have purchasing authority and need to approve the bills they incur. In the consumer model, there is one and only one user - consumers delegate this task to one person in the household. Businesses can't delegate because of the controls necessary to insure all spending is valid and appropriately authorized. Bill.com was designed to streamline the approval process.
Business bill payment involves a lot more paper. Business people approve payments by looking at contracts, past invoices (to see if there are duplicates), and even examining when the last payment cleared. All of this is paper-intensive and involved more than simply the paper generated by the vendor. Bill.com provides a central repository to digitally store all of this "paper". Related documents are linked together in this repository, making it easy for business people to quickly get the information they need.
Business bill payment involves a lot more transactions from varied sources. A consumer account typically has 10 recurring bills from the same vendors every month. A typical business has many more vendors, some that are seasonal and others that are just one-time. Bill.com was designed to handle a high level of transactions, and makes it easy to manage and transact with a large group of vendors.

What does Bill.com offer that I cannot get from my bank's online bill payment service?

Bill.com addresses the needs of the entire business bill payment process, not just online payment. Whereas your bank can help you make a payment, Bill.com optimizes your entire bill management and payment process. For example, Bill.com offers:

An easy way to digitize bills and manage paperless workflow between financial and non-financial participants in the bill payment process
You can set up large and small vendors, as well as employees and other individuals, to receive ePayments rather than paper checks from Bill.com. Select from a directory of over 4000 vendors in our database or securely add bank account and routing information to any vendor profile.
A complete audit trail of bill and payment approvals and activities
A financial filing cabinet that allows businesses to store and retrieve (using simple search) all documents involved in the bill payment process, including bills, contracts, and other supporting information (anywhere, anytime) fully indexed by optical character recognition (OCR)
Seamless integration from paperless workflow to bill payment (with equivalent functionality using any US bank account)
Synchronization of vendor, chart of accounts, and payables with your accounting software (QuickBooks or Intacct) including support for complex account splits. Your bank will only sync cleared transactions and require you to manually update your accounting system with all other accounting information.
Fraud protection against check manipulation with no additional fees (positive pay)
Unlimited retention of cleared check images online (no additional fees to get image CD's)
Easy access to payment evidence (cleared check images attached to approved bills) that might be required during audits
And much more!

Can I give my external bookkeeper/accountant access to my Bill.com information?

Yes. Bill.com provides you with the ability to limit or allow access to specific areas of the site on a user-by-user basis, and non-employee delegate users of the system are encouraged. So, for example, you could allow your accountant to handle all aspects of your payables processing, with the exception of actually authorizing bill payment, which you may want to handle yourself.

Is Bill.com appropriate for a home-based or single-person business?

Bill.com provides benefits for companies of any size. Even very small companies need a way to pay bills efficiently, invoice customers accurately and forecast cash flow. Since the service is provided on the web, Bill.com is available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from your home office or when you are on the road.

How long can I keep my documents on the site?

Bill.com will store your documents for seven years if your account remains active.

How long should I keep my bills, contracts, and other documents once I have uploaded, emailed or faxed them into Bill.com?

We recommend that you keep your documents for a year, and then dispose of them. Bill.com stores your documents for seven years (as long as your account is current) so that you don't have to.

Is it possible for Bill.com to send me a DVD with all of my documents? I would like to store them on my own servers as well.

Yes! Bill.com can send you a DVD with all of your documents in a stated date range. The cost of this service is $34.99 (including standard shipping and handling). Simply request a DVD with a date range by contacting Bill.com customer support.

What information do I need to have available to set up an account?

When you are ready to set up your account at Bill.com, you will need: your company address, phone number and email address. If you are going to use Bill.com to make your bill payments, you will also need to provide us with your EIN or TIN and your bank account and routing number, so that we can collect from you electronically the funds needed to make your vendor payments.

What are the system requirements to use Bill.com?

You will need access to the Internet, and Windows (95 and newer) with Internet Explorer (6.0 or higher ) or Firefox ( 2.0 or higher ).

How long does it take to make my vendor payments?

Bill.com will display the expected payment timeframe for each payment when you schedule it on the "Pay Bills" page. Keep in mind that expected arrival date is calculated from the process date you select, not the day on which you make the payment. For ePayments, we are able to tell you the date the payment will post. For payments via check, we do our best to predict timing based on delivery of the mail, however please be aware that exceptional circumstances (high mail volume holidays, delivery to very remote areas, etc.) could slightly impact the delivery timeframe.

Do I have to make all payments through Bill.com?

You do not need to make all payments through Bill.com. You can designate certain payments to be made by other means. The added benefit with Bill.com payments is that nobody can access your bank information (written on every check). Checks are drawn on our account and we automatically capture the cleared check images as the checks are cleared and attach them to the transactions for your viewing for no additional cost.

How does Bill.com bill me/collect money for each bill that I pay via Bill.com?

Bill.com makes vendor payments on behalf of its customers as a core function of our service. You determine a Process Date, based upon the Due Date, indicating when you want Bill.com to make payments. Bill.com makes all vendor payments electronically through ePayments (ACH) or via check. Checks are issued out of Bill.com's disbursement account at a major US financial institution. Each check displays both your name, as the customer of the vendor, and our name, as the payee. The bottom 2/3rds of the check stock display a high-quality copy of the bill image. In addition, the memo line on the check shows your company's name and the invoice number being paid.

Bill.com will debit your bank account via the ACH (Automated Clearing House) for the total amount of vendor payments to be made prior to sending payments. You can access the Funds Transfer Detail Report to see a complete list of payments that comprise the single ACH debit that will post to your bank account. When it posts to your bank account, ACH debit will be clearly marked as having come from Bill.com with a descriptor of "Payables".

How does Bill.com make the payments to the vendors? Is it all done online or through the mail?

Payments ia Bill.com are made via check through the US Postal Service or via ePayment (ACH) if you set up your vendor(s) to accept electronic payments. When sending a check a copy of the cleared check image is uploaded to the system and attached to the transaction when the check clears.

Does Bill.com allow me to pay vendors electronically? If so, what do I need to do?

Yes. You can set up a vendor within Bill.com to accept ePayments. When this is done we will pay them electronically via ACH rather than by sending a check. Vendors are set up for ePayments by matching them to a directory of over 4000 major vendors in our database or by entering their bank account and routing information securely within Bill.com. You can also invite vendors to join the Bill.com Payment Network by sending them an invitation which allows them to create a FREE Bill.com Receivables Account and securely manage their bank information.

Can I pay individuals via ePayments (ACH) or just businesses?

You can pay individuals and businesses! For individuals simply set them up as vendors in Bill.com and enter their bank account and routing information or invite them to join the Bill.com Payment Network so they can manage their own bank information in the system. All payments made to those individuals will go directly into their bank account.

What if I approve a bill to be paid, but there is not enough money in my bank account to clear the payment? What does Bill.com do?

Bill.com does not advance funds for vendor payments. If a debit initiated by Bill.com is returned from a customer's bank due to insufficient funds (or any other reason), Bill.com will hold the vendor check or ePayment until the issue is resolved.

If a vendor does not receive a payment on time (and assuming it was Bill.com's fault) what type of make-good policy does Bill.com offer for a situation like this?

We have not yet encountered a situation where a late payment was as a result of an error on Bill.com's part. However, if a payment does arrive late, and our investigations determined that the payment posting was delayed due to a process error on the part of Bill.com we would cover any late charges or penalties that the vendor assessed.

What can be done if a vendor does not deposit the payment check issued by Bill.com?

Bill.com monitors uncleared items monthly. If an item issued in the prior month hasn't cleared by the end of the current month, we send a note to the CPA firm or the client, notifying them that they might want to follow up with the vendor. If needed, we can void and re-issue for the client.

What accounting software can I export to?

Currently, Bill.com integrates with both QuickBooks desktop (2005 and later), QuickBooks Online Edition, and Intacct. Bill.com is also working with several providers of hosted QuickBooks (a desktop version of the software accessed on a virtual server. Bill.com also has specialized reports for exporting data to Thomson Reuters Write-Up CS™.

Can I import my chart of accounts into Bill.com?

Importing your chart of accounts is fast and easy. Simply go to the Company Setup link, click on Accounts, and follow the instructions that follow. You can also import vendors, departments and items from QuickBooks and Intacct as well.

Will you be integrating with other accounting packages?

Yes, we will. We are always striving to improve our product features. If we do not integrate with the accounting package you are using please send an email to our customer support team with your product requests and the name of the accounting package so that we can evaluate it for future development.

Is my company or employee information visible to Bill.com employees?

Our employees may access your information only to help us provide you with our service. We educate all of our employees about the importance of keeping our customers' information confidential and secure. Please visit our Privacy Policy.

What functions or departments in my company should use Bill.com?

Any department that spends money on supplies, services or equipment will benefit from having Bill.com access. Your collections team will appreciate having the view into receivables that Bill.com offers, and the finance department will have increased visibility into cash flow projections.

What does it mean that Bill.com has completed a SAS70 Type II Audit?

Bill.com has been audited for its internal process controls and has been deemed as SAS70 Type II compliant by a leading national CPA firm. The Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70, Service Organizations, is an important standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Accountants (AICPA). An audit conducted in accordance with the SAS70 standard represents that a service organization's control objectives and activities related to information technology and other related processes have been verified by an independent accounting and audit firm. Type II compliance indicates that our processes have not only been reviewed and audited, but also re-verified to ensure continued compliance.

Bill.com has made the investment to achieve and maintain SAS70 Type II compliance because we know that our services are critical to our customer's day-to-day financial operations and require significant controls to protect the safety and integrity of our customer's data.

Is Bill.com secure?

We design and maintain security procedures that protect your information on-line and off-line. We encrypt information that you send us and protect it with 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology. We use firewalls and intrusion-detection devices to prevent unauthorized electronic access to the servers where your information is stored, and we isolate those servers in cages to prevent unauthorized physical access.

How do I cancel the service?

You can cancel the service at any time by calling or emailing.

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Testimonials

"Bill.com is a wonderful service that has allowed me to reduce my payable processing costs by at least 75%."

Lee Jestings, Owner, Fastlane Chevron, Tucson AZ

"In one far–reaching step, Bill.com has replaced our previous approach of cobbled together processes and systems which were incomplete and inefficient."

Jeremy Pyles, Co-Founder, Niche Modern

"We're saving at least 50% over the old method of paying bills, so we can reinvest that energy and money into what really matters: serving and satisfying our customers."

Peter Bior, Co-Founder and Partner,
Massachusetts Burger Enterprises, LLC.

See more testimonials