How do international payments work in BILL?

Learn more about international payments in BILL.

Nov 27, 2023

BILL lets you pay international vendors electronically, making cross-border business payments just as easy as domestic payments.

By combining your payments onto one platform, you can save time with automated workflows and sync with accounting software. You can also save money by paying global vendors in local supported currencies with competitive exchange rates.

If you are a vendor outside the US and you'd like to receive payments from a customer who uses BILL, give your international banking information to your customer and they can add it to their account to send you payments.

To learn more, below is a list of new product improvements, key benefits, instructions on how it works, and FAQs to help answer your questions.

What's new

Benefits

Approval workflows and controls

  • BILL consolidates all payment activity into one system. It automates approval workflows for both international and domestic payments, supports controls, and provides audit-ready trails.

Accounting software and apps integration

  • Avoid struggling with double data entry. BILL automatically syncs with Sage Intacct, Oracle NetSuite, Intuit QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Xero.
  • Now, BILL syncs your bills even if multi-currency is not turned on in your accounting software

Payment tracking

  • Simply log in to BILL to see the status of all your payments, detailed payment information such as estimated delivery times and remittance information, exchange rates, confirmation, and more
  • We proactively share the payment tracing details with your vendor to help them resolve any issues with their banks
  • In comparison to some banks, access payment tracking for no additional fee

Competitive rates

  • $0 wire transfer fee and competitive exchange rate for payments in local supported currencies. Please refer to our current pricing page for transaction fees for international payments sent in USD.

How It Works

BILL streamlines the AP process for businesses, supporting 137 countries and 106 currencies worldwide. See the full list here.

Step 1: Create an international vendor and add bank information

  • On the vendor's detail page, follow the BILL prompts to enter the vendor’s address, bank location, currency, and bank information
  • Avoid wire fees by opting to pay in a vendor’s local currency
  • Send invites to your international vendors so they can add their bank information directly.
  • If a document in your inbox has the vendor's SWIFT or IBAN code, our Artificial Intelligence (AI) will detect it and make it even easier to get your international vendor setup for payment in just a couple clicks

Step 2: Create an international bill

  • Select Create Bill or select a document in the inbox and select Bill
  • Select the international vendor from the drop down. BILL will display the currency and current estimated exchange rate for bills in local currency
  • Our Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps you easily create bills for your international vendor from inbox documents by pre-populating important info, and even helping you setup the vendor for payments, if the document includes a SWIFT or IBAN code
  • Add approvers, just as you do for domestic payments

Step 3: Pay an international bill

  • Send international payments by selecting the bill to pay. For added convenience, opt to make bulk payments
  • Hit submit when ready to pay. The bill will appear in scheduled payments along with all domestic and international payments
  • In the Payments Out tab, select the payment confirmation number to track your payment

Step 4: Sync international transactions

  • You can sync transactions of all currencies between BILL and your accounting software, including the gains and losses of foreign currency transactions
  • You don't have to have multi-currency enabled to sync international transactions from BILL to your accounting software, giving you more freedom to control your preferences in your accounting software