Bill.com Bill Payment (Accounts Payable)
Frequently Asked Questions

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

We address the needs of the entire business bill payment process, not just paying online. This is much more complex than consumer online bill payment because 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 bills. In the consumer model, there is one and only one user: the bill-payer 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 this multi-person approval process.
• 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 involves more than 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 and act upon it.
• 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?

We address the needs of the entire business bill payment process, not just online payment. Yes, your bank can help you make a payment. But Bill.com can optimize your entire process of paying and managing bills. You get:

• An easy way to digitize bills and manage paperless workflow between financial and non-financial participants in your bill payment process
• The ability to pay large and small vendors, as well as employees and other individuals, via ePayments rather than paper checks from Bill.com. Select from a directory of over 4,000 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 you 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 leave it to 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 CDs)
• Easy access to payment evidence that might be required during audits (cleared check images are even printed attached to approved bills)
• And much more!

 

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

It's an assurance for you to breathe easy. We have been through a widely recognized audit of our control objectives and activities by a leading national CPA firm, and have demonstrated that we provide adequate controls and safeguards for your financial data.

 

Is Bill.com secure?

Yes. We design and maintain security procedures that protect your information both online and offline. We encrypt information that you send us and protect it with 256-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology – the same standards used by banks. 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. We have never experienced a security breach and we pledge to you to upkeep the same strict standards at all times.

 

I have an external bookkeeper/accountant. Can I give him or her access to my Bill.com information?

Yes. You can allow (and limit) access to specific areas of the site on a user-by-user basis. 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?

Yes! We provide benefits for companies of any size. Even very small companies need a way to pay bills efficiently, invoice customers accurately and forecast cash flow. And since the service is available online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from your home office or when you are on the road, it's especially useful for on-the-go small businesses who don't always keep conventional 9-5 office hours.

 

Is it possible for Bill.com to send me a DVD with all of my documents? I want to store them on my own servers, too.

Of course. Simply contact Bill.com customer support, tell us your stated date range, and we'll send you a DVD for $34.99 (including standard shipping and handling).

 

What are the system requirements to use Bill.com?

You will need a computer with access to the Internet and a web browser. There's nothing to install!

 

How long does it take to make my vendor payments?

If you plan to make payments, we will display the expected payment timeframe for each payment when you schedule it on the "Pay Bills" page.

 

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

No! You can designate payments to be made by other means.

 

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

Payments are made via ePayment (ACH) if you set your vendor up to accept electric payments, or via check through the US Postal Service. Whichever way you pay, a copy of the cleared check image (or ACH confirmation) is uploaded to the system and attached to the transaction when it clears.

 

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

Yes. You can easily set up a vendor within Bill.com to accept ePayments in one of two ways: by matching them to a directory of over 4,000 major vendors already in our database; or entering their bank account and routing information securely within Bill.com.  Once this is done we will pay them electronically via ACH rather than by sending a check. (A third option is to invite vendors to join the Bill.com Payment Network, allowing them to create a FREE Bill.com Receivables Account and securely manage their own bank information.)

 

Can I pay individuals via ePayments or just businesses?

You can easily pay both!

 

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

No worries. We monitor for uncleared checks and notify you if a check is not cashed within 20 days.

 

What accounting software can I export to?

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

 

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

Yes, you can. And it's fast and easy to do. Simply go to the Company Setup link, click on Accounts, and follow the instructions that follow. You can automatically synchronize vendors, departments and items from QuickBooks and Intacct. If you make changes they are automatically updated the next time you synchronize.

 

How do I cancel the service?

You can cancel the service at any time. We will be sorry to see you go and welcome your feedback about how to make our service better meet your needs.