You weren’t born to just pay bills and die. But it can sometimes feel that way. From your personal bills to managing paying vendors and contractors on time, it can be a full-time job.
Even with an admin managing approval workflows and data entry, the process is still slow and tedious. Bill payment platforms help, but are expensive, have high transaction fees, and are notoriously complicated to use.
The easiest way to improve your vendor payments processes, both in cost and efficiency, is to automate your accounts payable.
That solution? We have it.
Ready to dive right in to AP automation? Start with a complimentary demo here.
How To Simplify Paying Vendors And Contractors
Introducing Zeni Bill Pay – the fastest way to pay vendors, both domestically and internationally, and automate your accounts payable process from start to finish directly from the Zeni Dashboard. And it’s free!
Whether you’re new to Zeni or an existing customer, it’s the easiest, most cost-effective way to pay vendors and contractors with minimal management of the process on your end – so you can get back to running your business.
Our favorite reasons to automate AP with Zeni Bill Pay
1. Save money – Zeni Bill Pay is 100% free. Yes, you read that correctly. Anyone can use Bill Pay at no additional cost to an existing Zeni subscription. We don’t even charge ACH fees.
2. Eliminate the chance of error – Instead of manually inputting your vendor information and invoice details each time, simply upload an invoice to Zeni Bill Pay. Our AI auto-fills all the information in seconds and remembers your vendor information for future payments and classifications.
3. Increase efficiency – There’s no manual entry, which reduces the time and effort required to process and pay bills. You can also customize internal approval rules based on bill amounts and automate flows to make payments to vendors hassle-free. Zeni AI processes the invoice in real-time and updates your books daily in the process instead of at month-end.
4. See everything in one place – Bill Pay lives directly in your Zeni Dashboard. When you open the dashboard, you can easily see the status of all of your payments (and all your other financial information) on one platform.
5. Increased visibility into finances – AI keeps all of your data up to date. With real-time reporting and analytics, you can have greater visibility into the status of your bills, payment history, and overall financial health.
6. Pay domestically and internationally - Manage your vendor payments, both domestic and international, from a single platform. You have four options:
- ACH: 3-4 business days, $0
- ACH Same Day: $0
- Domestic Wire: $10
- International Wire: 4-5 business days, $20
For international payments, our Bill Pay service supports USD payouts, streamlining the process for you
*Coming Soon: Zeni will add payouts to counterparties in their local currency.
AP Automation Product Deep Dive
The road to automation is simple. Here’s how it works (the quick version):
- Upload a Bill – Zeni’s AI automatically populates all the necessary information. You save time and reduce the risk of error.
- Review and Submit – We’ve streamlined the review step. Quickly review the information and submit the bill for approval.
- Seamlessly Approve and Pay – Your bill goes through an efficient approval process. Once approved, the payment will be made on the due date — helping you control cash flow.
That’s it! Of course, you’ll need to perform one or two tasks to set up a system that benefits your startup’s needs, but once you’re up and running, you’ll have a well-oiled AP machine
So, let’s get into the whole process and your role.
Process Overview
Other bill pay solutions require manual data entry from start to finish.
From receiving an invoice to tracking down vendor payment details to paying bills by bank portal (and yes, even checks!) and then making sure your document it all in your general ledger properly…. we’re sweating just thinking about it.
This manual process is the core part of what makes invoice management an arduous task.
Keep reading to see what a non-manual process looks like with Zeni Bill Pay.
Bill Pay Dashboard
If you’re unfamiliar with our Dashboard, we house all your financial data in one spot. Each card on the Dashboard is interactive and expandable to show detailed pieces of financial information.
The Bill Pay card represents AP-related tasks and statuses in the same way by showing you all your bills and what lifecycle they’re currently in:
- Draft stage – Bills currently open for edits
- Approval stage – Bills awaiting approval
- Scheduled stage – Bills that have been approved and scheduled for payment.
- Paid stage – Bills considered paid with funds are on their way to the vendor’s bank account.
This is the simplest way to always know where your money is and ensure you are paying invoices on time.
Creating A Bill
Once you receive an invoice, simply upload the bill with Zeni’s uploader tool. AI then quickly pulls the data and transfers it to create a new bill in seconds. If you’re using our add-on Accounts Payable Services, use your personalized Zeni email and send the invoice to that account – Zeni takes care of the rest.
Our software automatically pulls the vendor’s name and assigns the bill to that vendor. Then pick your payment method. Zeni supports ACH same day, domestic and international wire transfers.
If you are receiving a bill from an international vendor
International vendors must submit requests in USD. Coming soon, Zeni will add payouts to counterparties in their local currency.
You can choose to review the bill before sending it for approval or assign to someone else on your team. Remember that you can also set your approval flows beforehand based on dollar amounts so that this process stays automated. More on this below.
Approving A Bill
All Zeni Bill Pay users can access the Dashboard, but only some roles receive bill approval notifications. You can set specific permissions to approval roles like amount limits. If a specific person can approve bills up to $30k, they’ll receive a notification on the Zeni Bill Pay card for bills at and below the limit.
If the bill doesn’t require edits, click approval, and you’re all set. Employees in these roles also have access to editing even in the approval stage. You can edit vendor details, payment amounts, and bank information here.
Zeni-Managed Accounts Payable Services
Zeni Bill Pay is fully self-service, but sometimes you need an extra hand. As a startup, we know how cumbersome it can be to manage different aspects of your business on top of financials.
That’s why we suggest pairing Zeni Bill Pay with the additional AP management services we offer to handle the administrative task related to maintaining an up-to-date AP process – free to add on if you’re processing less than 10 bills per month.
By adding on AP Services, our personal Zeni team manages three important aspects of the bill pay process – vendor management, email communications, and bill management.
Bill Management
Your dedicated Zeni team takes care of uploading invoices to Bill Pay, scheduling, and reviewing them on your behalf. We also establish your rules and approval flows and manage them accordingly, including setting up amortization and categories on each line for all bill line items in your ledger.
If any errors pop up through the billing cycle, Zeni is on deck daily to tackle these the moment they arise.
Of course, you can access all of the information through your Zeni dashboard to see how the workflow is going at any given time. Viewing all of your bills and payment statuses looks lives all in one place and is easily accessible by anyone on your team with permissions.
Vendor Management & Email Support
Consistent contact with vendors is necessary, but founders don’t always have time, especially when you have to contact vendors multiple times to get the information you need. With AP Services, we’ll communicate with vendors and contractors for you to collect anything from contracts and payment details to tax info and forms.
Say hello to one less email chain in your inbox!
Get Started Using Vendor Payment Automation
Paying bills – we all have to do it. For growing startups, transaction numbers climb as you expand, add team members, and accrue additional expenses. To keep your head, and finances, above water, you need an efficient invoice management and bill pay system.
Leveraging AP automation software gives you time back and streamlines the process without forgoing accuracy. You don’t need to shell out a hefty amount of cash to do so, either. Instead of relying on complex and costly software, come see what Zeni Bill Pay can do for you.
As a startup, we have a unique perspective and deep understanding of what a startup needs to run efficiently. We’d love to show you exactly how our bill pay services work and get to know you better. Take advantage of the ‘zen’ in Zeni – let us handle the responsibilities and relieve the stress of managing bill pay and accounts payable.
If you're ready to get started book a demo or 1-1 call with us here and we'll get you set up automating your bill pay in no time.
your business in our interactive demo!
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