Bill.com wants to help businesses cut out the checkbooks / Bill.com Is the Only Company Helping SMBs Change Their Check Payments to ACH (ePayments) by Automating the End-to-End Cash Flow Management Process

Christina Farr for VentureBeat.com writes: American consumers are increasingly making payments electronically while their checkbooks gather dust. So why are businesses so behind their customers?

A startup called Bill.com is the brainchild of former Intuit employee René Lacerte. The company has developed a cloud-based system to make it safe for businesses to adopt electronic payments. The company is announcing today that it has converted more than 40 percent of its customers from checks to Automated Clearing House (ACH), the electronic network for financial transactions in the U.S.

About 80 percent of American companies still rely on paper invoices and checks or manual reconciliation, according to a 2012 survey by The Accounts Payable Network. Why?

The ACH has been around for decades, but businesses haven’t utilized it due to its complexity. Bill.com has been working to automate the process for small businesses so they can advantage of ACH and cut down on processing costs.

The company claims its average customer has saved 106 hours and $1,392.10 per month. And it’s not just helping customers pay bills — Bill.com also helps customers process online invoices and manage sensitive financial documents. It also integrates with existing accounting software to analyze relevant data and provide a “cash forecast.”

“Scott Cook [Intuit's founder] used to say that the enemy is the paper and pencil — people doing this the old fashioned way,” said Lacerte, Bill.com’s CEO and founder in an interview.

Lacerte hopes the early adoption by SMBs is a sign of the company’s growth potential. Today, the company has 175,000 customers in its network, but it won’t disclose how many of them are paid. Bill.com makes its money by charging $.0.49 for each transaction.   Aside from paper mechanisms, Bill.com’s big competitors include accounting software systems like NetSuite.

Bill.com raised $15 million for its previous financing round. At that time, August Capital’s David Hornik made the bold claim that the company “moves more money than Square each month.”

Bill.com's Fast-Growing Business Payments Network Is Converting More Than 40 Percent of Customer Payments to ACH    /    Bill.com Is the Only Company Helping SMBs Change Their Check Payments to ACH by Automating the End-to-End Cash Flow Management Process

Bill.com, the leader in integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash flow management solutions for businesses, today announced that it is converting more than 40 percent of customer payments from check to ACH, meaning Bill.com is the only company making ACH -- commonly known as ePayments -- adoption a reality for small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). Bill.com is achieving this feat by going beyond single ACH transactions and automating the end-to-end cash flow management process, connecting people, documents, payments and accounting systems.

Today, more than 80% of transactions between U.S. small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) involve paper invoices, paper checks, or manual reconciliation, resulting in costly inefficiencies and errors. Bill.com is turning this paradigm on its ear. Bill.com is the first platform to digitize the whole process, integrating electronic payments seamlessly with accounting software and digital documents. 

Typically, only large companies have the staff, resources, and knowledge needed to use and integrate treasury management services such as ACH and Positive Pay. Bill.com makes those services accessible to companies of all sizes, as small as $100K in revenue to more than $100M, via its cloud-based AP, AR and cash flow management solution. This is critical because, for SMBs, it is not just about processing ACH transactions, it is about setting up an entire cash flow management solution. By transcending transaction processing to ACH-based process revolution, Bill.com is using ACH to redefine how SMBs work and is spurring on a new generation of "No Check" CEOs, a cadre of business and financial leaders using game-changing technology to replace time-consuming paper processes with fast, efficient cloud-based systems everywhere in their businesses.
Bill.com's ACH growth is fueled by the following unique offerings:

• Only Bill.com maintains a vendor and customer portal that is secure and maintained directly by the vendor/customer, ensuring privacy and security.
• Bill.com alone creates collaboration opportunities for customers to interact with their customers and vendors.
• Bill.com does this all for $.49 a transaction. This is by far less expensive than printing, mailing and/or receiving checks, finally ringing the death toll for paper checks.
  

"Our incredible network growth marks the advent of the ACH revolution," said René Lacerte, founder and CEO of Bill.com. "Consumers have already adopted ePayments, but businesses have lagged. Now, just as we freed financial professionals from error-prone, tedious manual accounting processes, we are removing the shackles of paper checks. Bill.com is democratizing treasury services and making ACH the payment method not of the future, but of now."

Bill.com delivers a complete web-based financial solution for businesses and accountants that provides the tools, information, and collaboration required to better manage their financial tasks and optimize cash flow. Bill.com's game-changing technology allows users to access online bill payments, e-invoicing, document management, and automated workflow through one easy system. In addition to seamlessly integrating with businesses' existing accounting software programs, Bill.com provides financial leaders with a comprehensive view of their cash forecast -- making it the only solution that connects a user's banks, bookkeeping, and business.