Notes on Approving Bills in BILL

Using the “approve” functionality in BILL is pretty intuitive. Clicking the “approve” button is easy, but knowing what happens when you approve a bill is important.

Verify Before You Approve

1. Coding: If you see an expense account you want to change, click to edit the bill and change the account category (or memo). BILL will remember that category for next time.
2. Payment Status: If you see a bill that was already paid but is showing as UNPAID, do not approve it just yet; you risk it being paid again. Instead, use the note section to include the payment info (date paid, check number, and the checking account used). Then we will mark it as paid, and you can approve it later once you see it has a PAID status.
3. Cash availability: If a bill is UNPAID and you approve it, that is the equivalent of signing the check. You are putting it in the queue to be paid in the next check run, so you’ll want to make sure funds are available to cover it. 

FastPay

If you see a bill that needs to be paid quickly, make a note on the bill to Fast Pay it.

1. Once we get started, we schedule bill payments on Thursdays each week. Those bill payments are sent out into the world on Fridays.  
2. If the vendor has not signed up for ACH, the bill payment is sent in as a paper check via US mail and can take about 5-7 business days to arrive.  
3. If you want a payment to go out faster, the first option is to invite the vendor to get paid electronically, because that’s always faster than US Mail.  
4. There is also an option in BILL called FastPay, which adds a turbo boost to the paper check or e-payment delivery.  Here are the details on FastPay functionality & fees in BILL: