BILL and BMO Debut Bill Pay and Invoicing Tool

Billing software firm BILL has launched a bill pay/invoicing platform with BMO.

Dubbed BMO Bill Connect, the cloud-based platform “gives customers more visibility and control over their financial operations,” BILL and BMO (the Bank of Montreal) said in a news release Thursday (March 9).

According to the release, the tool offers “end-to-end accounts payable and accounts receivable services” and was designed to work with accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero, giving businesses invoice and payment tracking and payment acceptance capabilities.

“Small businesses need real-time insight into their finances to save them time, have greater visibility and control over their cash flow,” said Irana Wasti, chief product officer at BILL. “Our digital-first payments and invoicing platform helps businesses improve efficiencies and focus on what matters most.”

During an earnings call last month, BILL founder and CEO René Lacerte said that demand for digitizing back-office operations is only growing for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) hoping to navigate today’s economic uncertainties.

As PYMNTS wrote, cloud-based software tools that help businesses automate back offices by integrating traditionally siloed processes into all-in-one digital platforms “are increasingly being leveraged by SMBs to remove common pain points and frictions arising from legacy paper-based and manual systems.”

That trend has helped drive a 79% four-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for BILL, formerly known as Bill.com.

“Our solutions are helping more than 400,000 businesses manage their financial operations, empowering them with more control and cash flow visibility while giving them more time to run their businesses. With our platform, ecosystem and scale, we are well positioned to help millions of SMBs automate their financial back office,” Lacerte said.

All SMBs need back-office efficiency, and the giant hurdles businesses have faced in recent years have only spotlighted the benefits automated tools provide in helping organizations realize key operational efficiencies in challenging times.

“The digital transformation is happening, this is not elective software,” Lacerte added.

Last August, PYMNTS pointed to BILL as an example of how the automated billing trend persisted even as the pandemic shifted, and the company’s senior leadership indicated during 2023’s first quarter earnings call that they see continued healthy demand from SMBs leveraging BILL’s platform as a vital way to manage their business despite a challenging near-term macro environment.

PYMNTS research has found that accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) headaches are so acute that two-thirds of SMBs who show interest in single platform for payables and receivables would pay up to 1% per transaction to get some relief.