New invoice approval system simplifies processing for businesses and nonprofits

July 16, 2013 — Bill.com has announced the availability of its Bill.com Approval Solution, which enables accountants, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and non-profit organizations (NPOs) to simplify and customize their invoice approval cycle, reducing needed manpower and turn-around time while adding vital checks and balances to the approval process. Bill.com is a developer of web-based, integrated bill payment systems, invoicing and cash flow management solutions for businesses.

With Bill.com, paperwork is scanned, faxed or emailed into the system. Bill.com then makes it possible for user to find all necessary data, contracts and other documents, keeping everything handy for one click access any time from anywhere.

Bill.com also records the payment due dates, revises the cash flow projection graph based on this information and sends out email notices to the right approvers. It shows each employee only the bills and paperwork they need to see, and never lets them forget when there’s a bill to review. Bill.com then prints and mails the checks or pays electronically on the day the user sets. Everything is taken care of for the user by Bill.com. The vendor gets rich remittance information and the user’s accounting software is updated automatically.

For NPOs, setting specific guidelines for approvals is especially important because these organizations are subject to rigid controls to ensure that their finances are being managed properly. It is common, for example, for a bill to require two signatures if over a certain amount, which used to prove difficult with the old manual process. Before Bill.com, signature approvals meant passing around paperwork, sometimes to different office locations. However, with Bill.com, NPOs can simply enter the rules for their approval process (e.g. if two signers are required for an invoice over $5,000) and Bill.com will route the document to the correct people for the needed approvals – regardless of where they are.

Joshua Caulfield, director of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), manages a NPO which serves 7,000 international members organized into 187 chapters. To manage this huge operation, Caulfield relies on a small, three person full-time staff. Given that all checks over $3,000 need to be approved by two people—and given that two out of three people travel three out of every four weeks—the approvals process was cumbersome at best.

“Before Bill.com checks would pile up in the office, waiting for people to come in. It would often take 45 days to get someone paid,” said Joshua Caulfield, director, American Institute of Architecture Students. “Now, with Bill.com, it only takes 48 hours. Bill.com eliminates the need for our accountant to cut a check and lets us get approvals from needed people no matter where they are. It has even improved our process from a management perspective because now our treasurer can always be one of the two approvers, no matter where he might be, which is really important for proper oversight of our organization.”

The Bill.com Approvals Solution also enables accountants and tax pros to customize approval processes to fit the specific needs of each of their clients via personalized consoles that let them manage all clients from one easy to use interface. Features include:

the ability to customize the approval policies of client companies to require approvers for any bill or vendor credit based on the dollar amount;
the ability to specify the number of users and/or named users on any bill or vendor credit;
convenient access to make changes in the workflow easily at any time;
configuration options to allow accountants to control when changes are allowed to a bill or vendor credit during the approvals process; and
beefed up security measures that prohibit unauthorized access to the client’s Bill.com account by requiring a secure code sent to their phone or other device.

“With the Bill.com approval cycle, you will never miss another discount or get stuck with a late fee because a bill was lost in a pile of paperwork on some approver’s desk,” said René Lacerte, founder and CEO, Bill.com. “Approving bills shouldn’t be hard—it should be one of the quickest and easiest things you do. That is why we are so thrilled to be able to simplify this process and let our customers concentrate on building great businesses and serving great communities. This is what Bill.com is all about.”