BILL’s Payment Processing Rises 20% as Small Businesses Adopt ePayments

The number of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) using BILL’s solutions to digitize their operations and adopt electronic payments increased by 10,000 over the past year.

The total number of SMBs using these solutions increased 2% from a year ago, reaching 450,000 during the quarter ended March 31, BILL said in a presentation released Thursday (May 2) in conjunction with the company’s quarterly earnings call.

“At BILL, we are energized by the fact that during the quarter, we helped more than 450,000 small businesses automate their financial operations so they could spend more time focused on their mission,” René Lacerte, CEO and founder of BILL, said Thursday during the call.

Other metrics for SMBs’ increasing adoption of digital solutions increased as well. Over the past year, through March 31, the number of transactions processed by BILL increased 20% to 26 million and the total payment volume transacted by BILL’s customers rose 10% to $71 billion, according to the presentation.

The company’s solutions include the BILL standalone product, the BILL Spend & Expense (S&E) solution formerly known as Divvy, and Invoice2go, the presentation said.

BILL’s financial operations platform for SMBs provides a digital onramp to replace paper-based processes, automate financial operations, make and receive payments, and manage budgets and cash flow, per the presentation.

These capabilities help SMBs overcome the challenges of disparate systems, a lack of visibility and siloed workflows, the presentation said.

During Thursday’s earnings call, Lacerte quoted a client’s chief financial officer, who said: “BILL saves us 40 hours a week and an entire full-time employee by automating our financial back office. It provides us real-time updates and strong control on card spend. It also enables us to work on the go.”

BILL sees ample opportunity to grow the adoption of its solutions, as there are 34 million SMBs and sole proprietors in the United States and more than 70 million around the world, according to the presentation.

SMBs and micro businesses currently tend to use Excel and paper as their financial tools, per the presentation.

“The vast majority of these businesses are still burdened by paper checks and manual processes,” Lacerte said during the call. “Our track record of innovating and delivering value puts us at the forefront to help millions of small businesses digitize their operations for the first time and drive adoption of ePayments.”