Everyone's got bills to pay...

Today I want to talk about one of my favorite SAAS solutions out there, Bill.com! No matter what you do, bill pay is a necessity to all and a headache to most. That is why EVERYONE should take a look at this app if you haven’t already.

When I assess an app and its effectiveness to a client, there are usually two high-level tests. How much time and resources will this save my client and/or how much time and resources will this save me, in turn saving client in accounting fees? Most times the app will satisfy one of those criteria and it will make sense to use as part of the whole accounting solution suite. However, Bill.com fulfills both criteria (saving time and resources for business owners and their accountants alike). But it doesn’t stop there! It also streamlines the process and experience for the vendors being paid with Bill.com. Truly a win for everyone!

Let me walk through the normal bill pay process. Your vendor provides a product or service and then presents you with a bill, either in-person, by mail, or by email. Depending on your workflow, someone may have to scan a digital copy, use the email copy, or use the paper copy and either way eventually manually enter it into your accounting system. Now that it is in there, there are many different workflows for approval and payment. I won’t try to define all of them, but under GAAP you do not want the same person entering the bills as is approving and cutting payments. Now finally sending payment. If you are sending an ACH through your banking bill pay I can’t argue the efficiency there and if it is a free service, you are winning double! But if you are hand-writing or printing checks think about time spent, money spent, and the time wasted. You are paying someone, probably more then minimum wage to stuff envelopes, which you had to pay for, plus postage, and then after all is said and done the vendor maybe gets the check finally deposited into the bank 7-10 days later!! Phew! That was even a mouthful!

Now lets see how easy this really could be…

With Bill.com you will be set up with your own email inbox. Your vendor can email the invoice directly there. This can shave 5-7 business days right off the top if they are currently sending bills by physical mail. Now with the bill in the system Bill.com uses their technology to pull names, dates, due dates, and amounts automatically and coding the bill has just turned from typing everything to a few clicks and bam it’s saved. Beside time saved and a lower risk of manual input error, you also just killed two other birds with one stone and didn’t even know it!

Once you save that bill it is automatically synced into your accounting system and automatically notifies the approver/payer that a bill is ready for review. In the last step the payor initiates an ACH that will be received in the vendors bank account the next day. Now there is a $.49 charge for this, which is even less than a stamp but the real savings is not paying someone for the time spent to print, package, and mail these checks. And the end game...the vendor. Compared to a physical paper workflow your vendor can have payment in their bank account 14 days faster! This alone could get you better terms and save even more money!

So to wrap up. This one change in your workflow can truly be a win win for every single party involved. Rarely can one tool satisfy and improve the experience for every user in multiple ways. Bill.com has achieved just that!