The best online accounting services provide simple tools for sending invoices and paying bills. That’s enough for many businesses, but Bill.com is there for companies that need more. It automates both accounts payable and receivable through an advanced workflow that no competitor offers. You (or your vendors) can import bills into your company file, and Bill.com converts them into electronic records. Once approved by designated staff, the bills are paid electronically or by paper check. Invoicing is just as easy. Bill.com functions capably as a standalone application, but if you use an accounting solution like Editors’ Choice winner QuickBooks Online, Xero, or a midrange application, you can connect the two and synchronize all transactions.
Bill.com is a useful tool for small businesses, though it’s not a typical double-entry accounting solution. If you were to mistake it for one, it would appear to be missing critical features, like inventory and payroll. Instead, Bill.com is a business payment platform. New features and enhancements to the service since our last review make it an Editors’ Choice winner. We especially appreciate the complete user interface redesign, improved mobile apps, and new payment options, including one that promises a 6:00 p.m. delivery time when you process a payment by 10:00 a.m.
How Much Does Bill.com Cost?
Bill.com has four pricing tiers: Essentials ($39 per person per month), Team ($49 per person per month), Corporate ($69 per person per month), and Enterprise (custom pricing).
The Essentials plan includes either accounts receivable or accounts payable management, approvals and sign-offs, import and export of select data, and email/chat support. The Team plan adds custom user roles, as well as the option to integrate with QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, and Xero. The Corporate plan lets you manage both accounts receivable and accounts payable. The Enterprise level integrates with midrange accounting solutions, such as Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct.
It’s impossible to compare Bill.com’s prices with those of similar applications because there are none. The company sees its competition as manual accounting, businesses that have not yet automated their bookkeeping, and there are many millions of them in the US alone.
Readying the Site
When you log in for the first time, Bill.com requires that you complete a multi-factor authentication process by entering a code sent to you via phone or text. You must also verify your email before you can start the setup process.
Next, the site asks you to connect a bank account and add a team member, after which you jump right into creating your first payment. To create a payment, you must create a vendor record first, which Bill.com simplifies by providing a built-in database of valid mailing addresses. You start typing, and a list of possible matching addresses appears so you can select the correct one.
If you have a bill from that vendor, you can upload it (drag and drop uploading works, too) or enter it manually. Another option is to give vendors your personal Bill.com email address, which lets them send bills directly to the site. You can also take a picture of a bill—even a handwritten one—with your smartphone to upload it. I uploaded one that I had scanned.
Almost instantly, the site pulled the invoice, due dates, and amount, dropping them in the correct fields on a Bill.com form. I selected the vendor I’d created from a drop-down list and added a description and account. I also had the option to select an approver. All that was left was to review the bill and authorize payment.
I could have paid with a credit or debit card, via direct bank ACH payment (billed at 49 cents per transaction), or by using PayPal or Bill.com’s Vendor Direct virtual card. I could even have made the payment by wiring the money if the vendor was located in one of the more than 130 countries that Bill.com supports.
Speedy Setup
If you can get through this sequence of actions, you can use Bill.com. The site goes on to walk you through a similar sequence for sending an invoice, creating a customer record, and so on, though it’s optional. To set up other areas of your account, like Your Company, Payables, Receivables, and Accounting (including Chart of Accounts and Items), you simply go to the settings page.
Most other financial websites I’ve reviewed don’t suggest creating transactions so quickly. In fact, I usually recommend that new users at least get a good start on defining preferences and creating records before starting to work. In Bill.com, that process would involve myriad tasks, like establishing the link between the site and your accounting software if you use one of the supported solutions. If you’re using Bill.com as a standalone application, you can import CSV files containing databases of customers and vendors, items, accounts, and so on.
User roles help you manage who can do what with bills. Several user roles are meticulously predefined for administrators, accountants, clerks, approvers, and others, and you can add more roles if you need them. You can also create policies to govern bill approvals. For example, you might decide that some bills don’t need approval and can simply be paid. Your policies may also mandate that bills greater than a specified dollar amount must have a given number of approvers.
By walking you through the basic processes at the start, you learn how easy it is to comply with the workflow. So, with Bill.com, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the site’s core tasks before you start dealing with other settings.
Familiar Look, Navigation
Bill.com opens to an Overview page, which displays five boxes: Bills to Pay, Open Invoices, Bill Approvals, Payments In, and Payments Out. They show a summary of what’s due, overdue, and upcoming. Having this information front and center when you first log in is a real time saver and may help you catch transactions that you otherwise would have missed.
You can toggle open a right vertical pane containing your to-do list and other tasks that need attention, like bills that violate your company’s approval policies. When you click through to these chores and complete them, they automatically disappear from the list.
Bill.com has completely revamped its navigation tool since my last review, and it’s much more elegant and usable. A series of small icons appears in a left vertical pane. Hover over this list, and an additional list containing matching text descriptions for each icon slides out. Click on the top link, Actions, and a menu of activities you can access directly from there drops down (Enter a bill, Send an invoice, and so on). All the other entries in this menu take you to the site’s main sections.
Overview, Inbox, and Documents make up the first section. The next two sections are divided into Payables and Receivables. If a menu entry can link to multiple related pages, hovering over it opens a submenu. For example, if you hover over Invoices, a submenu drops down containing links to Open Invoices, Recurring Invoices, and Credit Memos. The final section of the navigation pane includes links for reports and other miscellaneous screens, like support and expense management.
Once you’re on a work screen, you shouldn’t have any trouble accessing or entering information. Bill.com uses standard navigation and data entry conventions, primarily drop-down lists, fill-in-the-blank fields, and links to related pages. Its overall look is fresh and elegant, and it makes good use of screen space. The user interface doesn’t make you feel claustrophobic, nor do your eyes constantly have to dart around the page to find everything. The site’s operations are much simpler now than a few years ago. Because it can take some time to learn Bill.com’s workflow, a clear, understandable user experience is critical, and this site has it.
Starting a Workflow
That workflow begins when a bill or invoice comes into your Inbox. The screen is divided into two vertical panes. The one on the left displays a list of the documents that have come in by email or fax, for example, since you last accessed the site. Click on one, and the email content appears in the right pane. You can also view your emails in a grid view. Hover over one of the emails in the grid preview, and the entire email pops out in a window. Using the grid view, I was able to move through messages quickly and find the ones that required action on my part.
Each box in the grid contains a link labeled More actions (you can get to this from the list view, too). Open this drop-down menu, and you can select one of five entries there, depending on the content of the email. You can add it to an existing bill, vendor credit, or document; or you can enter a vendor credit or create a new document for an account, customer, vendor, and so on. The email may relate to a payment that needs processing, or you may wish to mark it as spam. If the screen is full of spam, you can bulk delete them.
If the document is a bill, you click the Enter Bill button in the lower right corner of the box. A split screen opens with an image of the bill on the left and the site’s own default bill template on the right. Bill.com transfers as much data from the original bill to the form as it can, and it does it almost instantly, faster than other financial websites I’ve seen that offer this tool, like NeatBooks and Intuit QuickBooks Online.
Since there’s no one standard bill format in the business world, the app most likely won’t pull in everything needed. You may have to enter some of the details yourself. If you can’t easily read the bill, you can zoom in or download it to see it better. When all the needed fields are included, you can save the entry, and review and pay it or mark it as paid. The bill will be routed to the appropriate employee(s) for approval and payment.
Ironclad Security
One of Bill.com most critical views is its list of unpaid bills. You can see at a glance what the approval status of each bill is (assigned, approving, approved) and batch pay the approved ones if you’re authorized. If you need to see a bill before paying, you click on the invoice number to open the record and any original bills that exist.
Click More Actions on this screen to access the Audit Trail. This page contains a detailed list of every time an employee “touched” that bill. It describes the action taken, by whom, and when. It documents what was changed and what field was affected. You need this level of security when multiple employees have access to approval and payment tools.
Getting Paid
Bill.com started its life as an accounts payable-only website, but it added accounts receivable functionality a long time ago. The site provides enough accounts receivable functionality that a small business that doesn’t need to track inventory could manage its receivables. You can create customer records to track your interaction history and use them in invoices. Sub-customers and credit memos are also supported, and Bill.com provides an audit trail for receivables similar to the one in payables.
Creating an invoice is easy. If you use the provided default form, you complete it by selecting from drop-down lists and entering data in the given fields. There are three different templates that you can modify by adding or removing standard fields. Those field options are as generous as those in most accounting websites. Invoices can include, for example, sales tax, discounts, and payments. You can add attachments and send completed forms via email or US mail. Recurring invoices are also supported.
Customers can log into a password-protected site and authorize payment for invoices you’ve sent. They can also authorize automatic payments from their bank accounts or credit cards, which can help you get paid faster, but which must be set up very carefully.
The accounts receivable elements of Bill.com are not as complex as the site’s accounts payable, but they don’t have to be. The tools provided will serve a small business with basic invoice needs well. Plus, if you use the site in conjunction with an accounting application, you’ll probably create your invoices in the other app.
Running Reports
Financial websites must have numerous report templates that match the scope of the application and can be customized to meet individual company’s needs. Bill.com is partially successful here. It offers a few dozen reports that you can run using your own business data to gain the insight you need to make smart decisions. Its selection of reports is excellent, but customization options are minimal.
The site defaults to HTML format for some reports. You can view others as HTML, PDF, or CSV. You can download some reports but not others. And unlike other accounting solutions, you can’t click an entry and be shown its underlying data (though you can see any documents that are attached, like an original bill). Also, I miss the old Cash Forecast graph that is no longer on the site.
Reliable Mobile Apps
Bill.com has both iOS and Android companion apps that are surprisingly comprehensive, considering the complexity of the browser-based application. You can easily do a lot of your billing and invoicing work away from the office.
The only things I found missing were some of the setup tools in the settings, like document templates and user roles. But the actual data entry and transaction pages translate well to the small screen. The apps are attractive and intuitive, requiring little time to learn if you’ve used the browser-based version.
The Dashboard displays a to-do list, payables and receivables overviews, and approval histories. A link in the upper left opens a navigation menu that takes you to the app’s main sections. You can turn documents in the Inbox into bills and send them through approvals just as you can on your desktop. You can invoice customers, upload documents (or snap a photo with your phone, even a handwritten bill), and pay vendors. Customer and vendor records contain complete contact information and provide access to existing bills, invoices, payments, and documents.
Even though the mobile apps are quite capable, I found it easier to work with Bill.com on the desktop.
Standing Alone
Bill.com is in a category by itself. No other service provides a similar set of tools that can function as a standalone application or be smoothly integrated with leading accounting programs. Bill.com does not pretend to be a full-blown small business accounting solution. Rather, it goes a step beyond double-entry accounting services in the areas of payables and receivables.
If you’re looking for a more traditional double-entry accounting service, we recommend Editors’ Choice winners QuickBooks Online for small businesses and FreshBooks for freelancers and solo entrepreneurs.
