BILL Debuts Enhanced Version of Supplier Payments Plus Tool

Finance platform BILL has announced an expansion to its Supplier Payments Plus offering.

The new capabilities extend the tool’s ability to automate and “intelligently orchestrate payments and cash application for enterprise suppliers,” the company said in a news release Wednesday (April 8).

This in turn streamlines small and medium-sized business (SMB) payments, reduces manual work and supports enterprise-grade controls, the release added.

BILL said this tool helps SMBs and enterprise suppliers operate with more speed and predictability at a time when suppliers are facing increased pressure to manage fragmented payment workflows.

“B2B payments are complex, requiring orchestration, trust, and precision across both SMBs and their Enterprise Suppliers,” said Mary Kay Bowman, executive vice president and general manager of payments and financial services at BILL. “This latest expansion reflects our continued innovation to make payments and cash application more seamless, intelligent and connected.”

Recent PYMNTS Intelligence research shows some of the payment-related headaches facing SMBs, 39% of which try to get by with less than a month’s operating cash on hand.

The research found that 43% of SMBs cited inefficient or inconsistent cash flow as their chief obstacle qualifying for financing, as lenders see irregular inflows as a sign of higher risk.

“This lack of liquidity creates a disastrous domino effect: 63% of business owners report missing expansion opportunities due to late payments, and 51% identify high operating costs as a compounding strain when funds are stuck in transit,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this week.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke late last year with BILL founder and CEO René Lacerte about the way a combination of artificial intelligence (AI), automation and a fundamental shift in software design would soon help SMBs compete with larger enterprises.

“The unlock is going to be tremendous. AI is going to enable people to explore dreams and passions they never thought of before. … I think it’s a huge, huge equalizer,”  Lacerte told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster.

“We’ll [soon] be talking about the Fortune 500 wanting the agility of the Fortune 5 million,” Lacerte predicted, adding that if the past 20 years were about providing SMBs with the tools of the enterprise, the next decade could flip the equation.

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