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.
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explain how ePayments work, how to invite and connect with vendors to use the ePayments feature, track and manage ePayments, and other helpful things to know. This article provides information for US vendors only. If you want to pay an international vendor, please see International payments: set up an international vendor for payment.
Prerequisite
Confirm whether you’re connecting to a US-based or international vendor.
Jump to:
- What's an ePayment?
- 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
- Send an invitation to an existing vendor from the banner
- Track an invitation
- Resend an invitation
- Send your vendor a reminder
- Cancel an 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'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:
- You send an invite to a vendor you want to transact with via ePayments
- That vendor accepts your invitation
- You can start scheduling ePayments with the vendor, once they accept your invite.
Now, check out the next section to get a detailed walkthrough of the invitation process.
Send an invitation when adding a vendor
We try to make it easy on you, so here’s a quick way to send an invitation for ePayments while you’re adding a vendor. Assuming that you’re in your account about to add a new vendor, do the following:
- In the Vendor name field, enter the name of the vendor you want to add.
The system will populate a dropdown list that shows you all the vendors in the network who either match or have similar spellings to the name you entered in the Vendor Name field.
- If your vendor’s name is already listed in the dropdown, simply hover over the name, and to the right of the name, select Connect & Pay to connect to your standard vendor (if you’re connecting with a national vendor, it’ll say Connect Instantly, instead). If it’s not already listed, then enter your new vendor’s name and fill in the fields to invite the new vendor.
Note: verified national vendors include verified national billers, such as water, power, cable, phone, electric, and other well-known companies.
- After you select how you’d like to connect, 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
Note: this immediately saves the vendor and sends them an invite to connect. The connection isn’t complete until the vendor accepts the invite.
If you’re inviting a verified national vendor, use one of their statements as a reference to select their correct billing address and enter your account number. Make sure you check it out with eagle eyes! You wouldn’t want to invite the wrong vendor or start making payments to the wrong account!
Once you confirm that all of the information matches what’s on the statement provided by the vendor, you can start scheduling ePayments with your vendor immediately.
Note: if either the ZIP code or account number doesn't match what’s on the billing statement, we’ll still save the vendor. However, we’ll use the default payment method, 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
We make it easy to send an ePayments invitation to a vendor while you’re adding an email address to their account. Here’s how:
- While you’re in their account record, scroll down to Vendor Payment Type and select ePayments — I want to invite my vendor to manage their own free Bill.com account.
- 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 subscription-free Basic Receivables account and add a bank account to receive payments from you and 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 vendors an invitation to use ePayments so that they can access the other features which allow them to view invoices, track payments, and update their own bank information if it changes.
When you go in to edit an existing vendor or add a new vendor, enter an email address.
Scroll down to How do you want to pay your vendor and select __ePayments - I have my vendor's bank account info and I'll manage it myself for now __
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. Once they complete verification, the original, manually-entered bank account will be inactivated, and you and the vendor can transact via the network connection.
If the vendor ever cancels their account or the bank account is inactivated, the system will go back to sending payments via check until they add a different bank. They can add another bank either manually or by establishing another network connection 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
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- All boxes are checked by default. Uncheck the boxes for the vendors you don't 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
Send an invitation to an existing vendor from the banner
On your existing vendors with an email address and physical address, you'll see a banner to set up ePayments if they aren't already set up.
- Select Set up ePayments
- If a vendor in our Network matches your vendor's name, we'll show a suggested connection.
- Select Connect & Pay if the suggested vendor matches your vendor
- Select I don't see a match for my vendor if the suggested vendor doesn't match, and move to step 2
- Select Edit to edit the invitation as needed
- Make your edits
- Check Make this my default invite to make this invite the default for all vendors if you'd like
- Select Send
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 address, or if your vendor can't find the original invite, you’ll 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 you’re waiting on your vendor to accept your invitation, 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, 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.
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
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.com.
- 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 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 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.
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.com 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.
- Select Vendors in the navigation menu
- Select the vendor's name
- Select the three dots next to Edit
- Select Enter PNI
- Enter your vendor's Payment Network ID and select Search
- Select Connect & Pay
- 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:
- 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
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
- Disconnect from the old vendor contact's account in the vendor record in your account
- Update the vendor information 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 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 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 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.com, we’re unable to download or export a vendor’s bank information.
