How do I connect a vendor and set up ePayment?

Learn how to connect a vendor and set up ePayment.

Feb 28, 2024

Many of our customers enjoy paying vendors using our ePayment feature because there’s no waiting for checks to arrive, no trips to the bank, and payments go directly to the vendor's bank account! The fastest way to connect is to invite each vendor to be paid electronically, or enter your vendor's bank info if you have it.

What's an ePayment?

An ePayment is another name for a direct deposit, which is a term used to refer to electronic bank-to-bank money transfers that are processed through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network.

Most vendors prefer ePayments over paper checks, since they’re generally very quick, prevent trips to the bank, and deposit directly to the vendor's bank account. At a high level, here’s how it works:

1. You send an invite to a vendor you want to transact with via ePayments
2. That vendor accepts your invitation
3. You can start scheduling ePayments with the vendor, once they accept your invite.

Check out the next sections for more details of the invitation process.

Send an invitation when adding a new vendor

Follow the steps below to send a connection invitation while adding a new vendor:

1. Enter the vendor's name, address, email address and phone number
   • If we find existing matches in our Network, we will show you a list to choose from. Select a vendor from the list if you find a match, select Confirm, and we'll send an invitation. If none match, select My vendor isn’t listed here, and continue to step 2.
   • Note: verified national vendors in the network include verified national billers, such as water, power, cable, phone, electric, and other well-known companies. If you select to connect to one of these vendors, you might get a prompt to confirm the mailing address of the vendor or to enter your account number. If so, enter and save this information, then select Invite to Connect.
     • Be very sure you're entering the correct information right from a recent billing statement so you send payments to the correct vendor.
2. Double check the vendor's email address, optionally select View or edit email if you'd like to edit the invitation, then select Yes, Email Vendor
3. Finish adding the vendor to send the invitation.

Send invites to multiple vendors at once

If you want to send ePayment invitations to multiple vendors at once:

1. Select the Network icon
2. Select Access additional network features here
3. Next to Invite, select View All to see all vendors available to invite
   
4. All boxes are checked by default. Uncheck the boxes for the vendors you don't want to invite.
5. Select Next
6. Verify the names and email addresses on the invites and edit as needed.
   • Select Customize invite if you'd like to customize and preview the invitation before sending
   • Make your edits
   • Check Default - make all vendor invitations like this one to make this invite the default for all vendors if you'd like
7. Select Invite now, or Send Invite if you customized

Send an invitation to an existing vendor

Follow the steps below to send a connection invitation to an existing vendor:

1. Select Vendors in the navigation menu
2. Select the vendor's name
3. Select Invite to connect in BILL
   • If we find existing matches in our Network, we will show you a list to choose from. Select a vendor from the list if you find a match, select Confirm, and we'll send an invitation. If none match, select My vendor isn’t listed here, and continue to step 4.
     • Note: verified national vendors in the network include verified national billers, such as water, power, cable, phone, electric, and other well-known companies. If you select to connect to one of these vendors, you might get a prompt to confirm the mailing address of the vendor or to enter your account number. If so, enter and save this information, then select Invite to Connect.
       • Be very sure you're entering the correct information right from a recent billing statement so you send payments to the correct vendor.
4. Double check the vendor's email address, optionally edit the invitation, then select Send Invitation

Track an invitation

When you send an invitation to a vendor, a tracker will appear on the top of their profile to let you know the status of the invite.

• Connection request sent: you've sent the invitation, but the vendor has not yet accepted or declined
• Invite accepted: your vendor has accepted the invitation, but they haven't completed adding a bank account to receive payments
• Invite declined: your vendor has declined the invite. You can resend a declined invite up to 2 times, to prevent SPAM and fraud.
• Invite expired: your vendor hasn't accepted or declined the invite for 60 days, and the invite has expired. You can resend an expired invite up to 2 times, to limit inappropriate use of this function.
• Ready for ePayments: your vendor has accepted the invite, and has completed adding a bank account. You're ready to send ePayments!

Resend an invitation

• If you need to resend an invitation to a new email address, if the existing invitation hasn't expired, simply change the vendor's email address and we'll automatically send a new invitation to the newly entered email address. A notification in your task list will let you knew we've resent the invite.
  • If the existing invitation has expired, change the email address and resend the invite before saving the edited vendor
• If your vendor can't find the original invite, you’ll need to cancel the invitation and send a new one.
• If you need to resend an invitation to a vendor without changing any vendor info, you’ll need to cancel the invitation and send a new one.

Send your vendor a reminder

If you’re waiting on your vendor to accept your invitation, you can send them a reminder email.

1. Select Vendors in the navigation menu
2. Select the vendor's name
3. Select Send reminder in the tracker at the top of the page
4. Select Send

Cancel an invitation

1. Select Vendors in the navigation menu
2. Select the vendor's name
3. Select More details
4. Select Cancel next to Connection invite sent on xx/xx/xxxx

If you don't see the option to cancel, this means your vendor has already accepted the invitation and the only way to cancel transactions with that vendor is to disconnect from the vendor.

Enter the vendor's bank information manually

If the vendor gives you their bank information, you can manually enter it into their vendor record within BILL.

1. Select Vendors in the navigation menu
2. Select the vendor's name
3. Select Edit
4. Select Payment type to expand that section
5. Select Bank Deposit - pay with your vendor's banking information
   • Select Invite my vendor to join BILL and manage their own bank info if you'd like to also invite your vendor to create a free basic account to manage their info in the future
6. Enter the vendor's bank account information
   • Routing number
   • Account number
   • Re-enter Account number
   • Account holder name
7. Select Save

• The bank account immediately shows that it’s a verified status.
• In 1-2 business days, we’ll send a test deposit of $ 0.01 (one cent) to your vendor's bank account to confirm it's able to receive payments, and this won’t be re-debited.
• We’ll also send an email notification to your vendor that you've added their bank information for payments. We'll send the vendor check payments until the bank account is fully verified.
• If the test deposit isn’t successful, we’ll invalidate the bank account, and notify the vendor. You’ll need to add a new bank account for the vendor if you want to send ePayments.
  • Until you add a new bank account, the payment method will default back to a check.

Enter the vendor's Payment Network ID

If your vendor is already using BILL to receive payments electronically, ask them for their Payment Network ID and enter it manually into their vendor record to connect. Once you have your vendor's Payment Network ID(PNI), cancel any pending invitations, and add the PNI to the vendor's details in your account.

1. Select Vendors in the navigation menu
2. Select the vendor's name
3. Select Search & Enter under Payment Network ID
4. Enter your vendor's Payment Network ID and select Search
5. Select Connect & Pay if you find a match
6. Select Confirm

ePayment pending

If an ePayment connection shows as pending, it’s likely due to one of the following reasons:

• Your vendor hasn’t accepted the invitation
• Your vendor has accepted the invitation, but hasn’t completed the account setup.
• Your vendor has accepted the invite and set up their account, but hasn’t added a bank account.
• Your vendor has accepted the invitation, set up their account, and added a bank account, but the account isn’t verified.
• Your vendor has accepted the invitation, set up their account, and added a bank account, but the bank account isn’t valid.
• You manually added the bank account to the vendor record in your account, but the bank account isn’t verified.

When you schedule a check payment to a vendor with a pending (sent but not yet accepted) invitation, we send them a payment notification that includes a reminder to accept your invitation and set up their account. If they set up their account and accept your invitation and add a valid bank account within 24 hours, we'll pay them faster via ePayment instead of check. Your vendor can also reach out to Customer Support if they need some help getting set up.

What to do when your vendor contact changes

If your vendor’s contact information changes on a connected vendor, you’ll need to update their contact information using one of these methods:

Method 1 - keep existing vendor account

This method is ideal because it'll provide the new contact with access to the historical invoices and payment information in the existing account.

If the past vendor contact can login:

1. Have the old contact login and add the new contact as an Admin user
2. Have the new contact login and delete the user profile for the old contact
3. The new contact can then add a new bank account if needed, and you can continue sending ePayments

Method 2 - disconnect from the old vendor account and invite the new vendor.

This is your only ideal option if the old vendor contact is not able to log in to provide the new contact with access to the existing account information

1. Disconnect from the old vendor contact's account in the vendor record in your account
2. Edit the vendor information in your account as needed (email, pay to, etc.)
3. Send a new invitation to the new vendor contact

The new contact will create their own account and add a bank to receive payments. With this method, the new vendor contact will only see payment and invoice information going forward, and cannot access historical info.

Please see the related articles at the bottom of this page to help with adding users, updating bank account information and disconnecting from a vendor, etc.

Things to know

• To help prevent fraud and SPAM, you’re only allowed to send up to 300 ePayment invitations per day.
• A connection is complete when the vendor accepts the invitation, but you can't send ePayments until they add a valid bank account.
• Vendor invitations expire after 60 days
• If your vendor needs help setting up their account, or you want to see what they see, you can check out the Setting up a subscription-free Basic Receivables account article.
• Because all bank information is encrypted once entered into BILL, we’re unable to download or export a vendor’s bank information.
• If you connect to a vendor or customer, and they later close their account, we'll disconnect the connection and let you know via a banner on the vendor record and a note in your task list