ePayment is an excellent and easy way to pay vendors. The payment goes directly to the vendor's bank account. No waiting for checks to arrive and no trips to the bank! The fastest way to connect is to invite each vendor to be paid electronically.
These steps are for US vendors only. If you want to pay an international vendor, please see International payments: Set up an international vendor for payment.
Jump to:
- What are ePayments?
- Send an invitation when adding a vendor
- Send an invitation when adding an email address to a vendor
- Send an invitation to a vendor with a bank account already manually added
- Send invites to multiple vendors at once
- Track an invitation
- Resend an invitation
- Send your vendor a reminder
- Cancel an invitation
- What your vendor sees when they accept your invitation
- Enter the vendor's bank information manually
- Enter the vendor's Payment Network ID
- ePayment pending
- What to do when your vendor contact changes
- Things to know
What are ePayments?
ACH ePayments are electronic bank-to-bank money transfers processed through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. They're paperless payments also known as “direct deposit.”
Most vendors prefer ePayments over paper checks since they can be faster than paper checks, the payment goes directly to the vendor's bank account, there's no waiting for checks to arrive, and no trips to the bank to cash or deposit the check.
Send an invitation when adding a vendor
When you begin adding a new vendor to your account and enter a vendor name, we will show you any potential matching vendors who currently exist in the Network.
Enter the vendor's name, and we'll show search results for vendors currently in our Network
Select Connect & Pay to connect to a standard vendor, or select Connect Instantly to connect to a verified national vendor in our network
- Verified national vendors include water, power, cable, phone, electric, and other well-known companies, and are verified national billers
After selecting Connect & Pay or Connect Instantly
- For a standard vendor, we show the vendor details for you to review. If it is the correct vendor, select Invite to connect to immediately save the vendor and send the invite. The connection will be complete once the vendor accepts the invite
- For a verified national vendor, select the billing address, and enter the account number that matches your statements from the vendor to be sure we connect you properly.
- If the ZIP code and account number you selected match the ones provided by the vendor, you can schedule ePayments to your new vendor immediately.
- If the ZIP code or account number don't match, the vendor will still be saved, but their payment method will be paper checks to make sure we don't send ePayments to the wrong account.
Send an invitation when adding an email address to a vendor
When you add an email address to a Vendor's details, you can send an invitation to network with you so you can pay them faster with electronic payments.
- When you edit an existing vendor, or add a new vendor, enter an email address
- Select ePayments - I want to invite my vendor to manage their own free Bill.com account under HOW DO YOU WANT TO PAY YOUR VENDOR?
- Select View and edit email invitation if you'd like to preview and edit the invitation
- Select Edit to edit the invite
- Make your edits
- Check Update my default invite to make this invite the default for all vendors if you'd like
- Select Close
- Select Add vendor & send invite if it's a new vendor, or Save & send invite if it's an existing vendor
If they don't already have an account, they can open a Receivables account and add a bank to receive payments from you and any other Bill.com users.
Send an invitation to a vendor with a bank account already manually added
Even if you add a bank account to a vendor yourself, you can still send an invitation to your vendor. If they accept, they can view invoices, track payments, and update their own bank information when it changes.
- When you edit an existing vendor, or add a new vendor, enter an email address
- Select ePayments - I have my vendor's bank account info and I'll manage it myself for now under HOW DO YOU WANT TO PAY YOUR VENDOR?
- Check the box for Invite my vendor to join Bill.com and manage their own bank info
- Select View and edit email invitation if you'd like to preview and edit the invitation
- Select Edit to edit the invite
- Make your edits
- Check Update my default invite to make this invite the default for all vendors if you'd like
- Select Close
- Select Add vendor & send invite if it's a new vendor, or Save & send invite if it's an existing vendor
You can still send ePayments to the vendor through the previously verified bank account until the vendor accepts the invitation, and adds a verified bank account. When the bank account is verified on the vendor's side, the original manually entered bank account will be inactivated, and ePayments will then be sent via the Network connection. If at any time the vendor cancels their account or the bank account is inactivated, the vendor will default back to check payments and a new bank will need to be added either manually in the vendor record or via network connection in order to resume ePayments.
Send invites to multiple vendors at once
If you want to send ePayment invitations to multiple vendors at once:
- Select the Network icon
- Select Access additional network features here
- Next to Invite, select View All to see all vendors available to invite
- All boxes are checked by default. Uncheck the boxes for the vendors you do not want to invite
- Select Next
- 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
- Select Invite now, or Send Invite if you customized
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 have sent the invitation, but the vendor has not yet accepted or declined
- Invite accepted: Your vendor has accepted the invitation, but they have not 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 has not accepted or declined the invite for 60 days, and the invite has expired. You can resend an expired invite up to 2 times, to prevent SPAM and fraud
- Connected: Your vendor has accepted the invite, and has completed adding a bank account. You are ready to send ePayments!
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 send their payment faster, via ePayment instead of check.
Resend an invitation
If you need to resend an invitation to a new address, or if your vendor can't find the original invite, you will need to cancel the invitation and send a new one.
Cancel the invitation
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor's name
- Select More actions
- Select Cancel invite
You can then edit the vendor's email address if needed, and resend an invitation via any of the methods on this article.
Send your vendor a reminder
If your vendor hasn't accepted the invitation yet, you can send them a reminder email.
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor's name
- Select Send reminder in the tracker at the top of the page
- Select Send
Cancel an invitation
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor's name
- Select More actions
- Select Cancel invite
If you don't see the option to cancel, your vendor has already accepted the invitation. You'll want to disconnect from the vendor instead.
Disconnect a vendor connection
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor name to disconnect
- Select More actions
- Select Disconnect
- On the confirmation pop up, select Disconnect
What your vendor sees when they accept your invitation
If you'd like to see the sign-up process your vendor will follow, or provide the article to help guide them if needed, please see the Setting up a subscription free Basic Receivables account
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 your Bill.com account.
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor's name
- Select More actions
- Select Edit Vendor
- Select ePayments - I have my vendor's bank account info and I'll manage it myself for now
- select Invite my vendor to join Bill.com and manage their own bank info if you'd like to also invite your vendor to create a subscription-free basic account to manage their info in the future
- Enter the vendor's bank account information in the Vendor Bank Info section
- Bank account holder's name (may or may not be the same as the vendor name, but should be the actual bank account holder's name)
- Routing number
- Account number
- Re-enter Account number
- Select Save
The bank account is immediately in a verified status. In 1-2 business days, we will send a test deposit of $0.01 (a penny) to your vendor's bank account to confirm it's able to receive payments, and this will not be debited back. We will also send an email notification to your vendor that you have added their bank information for payments.
If the test deposit is not successful, we will invalidate the bank account, and send a notification to the vendor. You will need to add a new bank for the vendor if you want to send ePayments. Until you add a new bank account, the payment method will default back to Check.
Enter the vendor's Payment Network ID
If your vendor is already using Bill.com to receive payments electronically, ask them for their Payment Network ID and enter it manually into their vendor record to connect.
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor's name
- Select More actions
- Select Enter PNI
- Enter your vendor's Payment Network ID and select Search
- Select Connect & Pay
- Select Confirm
ePayment pending
There are a few reasons you might see that the ePayment connection is still pending:
- Your vendor has not yet accepted the invitation
- Your vendor has accepted the invitation, but has not completed account setup
- Your vendor has accepted the invite and setup their account, but has not yet added a bank account
- Your vendor has accepted the invitatio, setup their account, and added a bank account, but the account has not yet been verified
- Your vendor has accepted the invitation, setup their account, and added a bank account, but the account was not valid
- You manually added the bank account to the vendor record in your account, but the bank account is not yet verified
When you schedule a check payment to a vendor with a pending 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 send their payment 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 contact changes on a connected vendor and you need to change their information, there are a couple options.
Option 1 - keep existing vendor account
If the past vendor contact can login:
- Have the old contact login and add the new contact as an Admin user
- Have the new contact login and delete the user profile for the old contact
- The new contact can then add a new bank account if needed, and you can continue sending ePayments
This method is ideal as the new contact will have access to the historical invoice and payment information in the existing account.
Option 2 - disconnect from the old vendor account, invite the new vendor
If the old vendor contact is not able to login and add the new contact as a user to the existing account:
- Disconnect from the old vendor contact's account in the vendor record in your account
- Update the vendor info in your account as needed (email, pay to, etc.)
- Send a new invitation to the new vendor contact
- The new contact will create their own account and add a bank to receive payment
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, disconnecting from a vendor, etc.
Things to know
- To help prevent fraud and SPAM, you can send up to 300 invitations per day maximum
- A connection is complete when the vendor accepts the invitation, but you cannot 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 will see, you can check out the Setting up a subscription free Basic Receivables account article
- Per federal regulations, a full address will be required to be added to a vendor record before a payment can be made to that vendor
- Because all bank information is encrypted once entered into Bill.com, we do not have the ability to download or export vendor bank information
