BILL API Platform
Discover how to leverage BILL API Platform features in your integrations
BILL is a financial operations platform that helps businesses automate, control, and optimize how they pay and get paid. At its core, BILL enables you to streamline three core operations for your business: Accounts Payable (AP), Accounts Receivable (AR), and Spend & Expense (S&E).
Platform capabilities
The BILL API Platform provides integration options that enable you to connect directly with your existing systems, helping you to simplify your financial technology stack and increase operating efficiency.
Use the BILL v3 API & access the full breadth of the BILL API Platform: AP, AR, & S&E. Receive real-time event notifications with webhooks.
Embed low-code BILL UI Elements into your application. Get access to the BILL AP workflow with minimal development effort.
Business challenges today
BILL has seen a clear trend: businesses and their employees want to pay vendors securely and on time.
Businesses are increasingly frustrated by managing multiple tools and subscriptions to accomplish what should be a straightforward task. Using disparate systems for AP and AR creates inefficiency and increases the risk of manual errors.
Many existing marketplace solutions offer limited functionality, such as mark as paid or manual check printing, but these solutions do not address the core complexities of money movement.
BILL API Platform is the solution
The BILL API Platform (BILL v3 API and low-code UI Elements) provides integration options that enable you to connect directly with your existing systems, helping you to simplify your financial technology stack and increase operating efficiency.
See BILL core capabilities for a complete breakdown of all capabilities.
With the BILL v3 API and BILL Elements, easily tap into the established BILL Network and payment infrastructure instead of building complex payment logic from scratch. Both integration options are designed to simplify and accelerate your development.
You bring the customers, vendors, and bills. BILL brings the payments infrastructure, market expertise, and safeguards that power different workflows.
Example workflow: Simple AP payment
We use the simple AP payment workflow to explain what it means to integrate with BILL. Your systems remain the source of truth for your organizational data (including users, vendors, bills, and whether a bill has been paid). The BILL integration manages the financial lifecycle.
The workflow is divided into two phases.
- Organization: Use the BILL API to build your organization structure in BILL.
- Users: Create user profiles, & designate authorized users to initiate payments.
- LRC: BILL automatically performs the required Legal, Risk, & Compliance (LRC) verification for the organization & users. BILL verifies the entered information about the organization and all its users.
- Funding accounts: Add funding accounts for money movement (payments out and payments in). Enable user permissions to add funding methods (bank accounts and card accounts).
- Create vendors: Create vendor records in BILL. BILL automatically scans your vendor list to look for matches in the BILL Network. Matched vendors are connected for faster, secure payments.
- Create bills: Generate bills in BILL to match your internal records. BILL can share complete bill records to the vendor for remittance.
- Pay vendors: Initiate payments for bills, select a funding account for each payment or batch, & send payments in the vendor’s preferred payment method. Track payment status from debit to completion.
BILL integration models
Select your BILL integration model that aligns with your needs.
| Integration model | What is it? | Why pick this model? |
|---|---|---|
| API only | Use the BILL v3 API & access the full breadth of the BILL API Platform. Design & build complete user experiences from onboarding to reconciliation, enabling you to create an experience that meets your exact needs. | Best for teams looking for full control over their experience, & have dedicated resources to build end-to-end workflows. Build the end-to-end UI, manage all workflows & customize domain-specific flows. Handle all backend compliance orchestration. |
| Elements only | Embed low-code, theme-able BILL UI Elements into your application. Get access to standardized AP workflows that solve for your needs with minimal development effort. BILL Elements are components that require less code to implement, handle all API calls internally, & have built-in error & exception handling for compliance. | Best for teams looking to quickly start sending payments, want minimal development effort, & are less motivated by deep customization. Embed the Elements theme in the look & feel of your application, & configure navigation within your application. Your embedded Elements manage all front end & back end logic. |
| API + Elements | Combine low-code Elements with BILL v3 API. Use Elements for standard experiences (such as adding a funding account) & the API for custom add-ons (such as the bill approval workflow). | Best for teams looking for flexibility to customize & dedicate resources to specific flows, but are less motivated to own all end-to-end workflows. Determine the steps you want to manage with the API & where you want to embed Elements in the UI. |
Comparison matrix
Integration model | Integration effort | UI customization | End-to-end control |
|---|---|---|---|
API only | High | Full customization | Full control |
Element only | Minimal | Moderate | Limited control |
API + Elements | Moderate | Mixed | Moderate control |
Updated 2 days ago