Tips on how to guide clients through change and on to BILL

Now that your firm has implemented BILL and trained its staff on it, what are the best ways to onboard your clients? And how can you do it effectively and efficiently?  

Laura Redmond, Founder and CEO of Redmond Accounting, and Caleb L. Jenkins, EA, CQP, Leader of CAS for RLJ Financial Services, offer the following tips to help speed up, smooth out, and scale client onboarding. 

1. Speak to your clients’ concerns and how BILL can help them

When it comes to spending and payments, clients often have concerns. Are they worried about cash flow? Are vendors complaining of late payments? Are they spending too much time on AP and expense management? Listening and understanding their concerns, and then sharing how BILL can help alleviate them underscores the value of the technology. 

Redmond uses their clients’ experiences with fraud to educate others about BILL AP/AR benefits 

“We advise clients about fraud risk and the importance of electronic payments,” she says. “However, even if a client insists on sending payments via paper checks, they’re better off using BILL. BILL offers positive pay on every paper check. In addition, each paper check sent by BILL is sent on a client’s behalf with BILL’s bank account number on it, not your client’s, thereby protecting your client’s bank account information. I’ve witnessed fraud with clients before they were using BILL. And I’ve witnessed fraud attempts with clients who were using BILL, in particular a large multi-state, multi-check fraudulent payments case amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lead detective looked across the table at me and said, ‘The reason your client did not lose a penny was solely because they were using BILL.’ Information like this is important for your clients to know. It sets the stage for why they may want to use this technology.”

Concerns around fraudulent or accidental charges also open the door for BILL Spend & Expense conversations. Virtual cards allow clients to have a unique card number and spend limits for each vendor payment.

“I commonly hear of issues with fraud charges on credit card charges from my clients,“ offers Jenkins. “This is one of the many reasons I love working with the BILL Divvy Card powered by Visa¹. If one of your virtual cards becomes compromised with a fraudulent charge, the likelihood is that this fraud charge will fail due to expense limits we can set on the virtual cards. Within a few seconds we can freeze the compromised virtual card and create a new one for that specific vendor. This helps eliminate setting up  a new card number on all 50 or maybe even 100 online vendors who have the credit card information stored for monthly recurring charges.”

In addition to fraud, there are a multitude of other reasons clients appreciate BILL—from building stronger vendor relationships, increasing efficiency, enhancing transparency, and more. 

‍Resources

• Use this interactive checklist to find out if your clients are ideal candidates for BILL Spend & Expense 
• Read how common cash flow and operational challenges open the door for spend management conversations. 
• Learn more about tips and tricks to sell BILL AP/AR

2. Take advantage of BILL resources 

 When onboarding clients to BILL, there’s no need to start from scratch. The BILL Accountant Resource Center offers advice and checklists on how to onboard clients. The guides include how to onboard for both BILL AP/AR and BILL Spend & Expense, and checklists to help you build an efficient process.  

In addition, BILL provides other resources that Redmond and Jenkins consider helpful such as demos or relying on your BILL account manager.

“We've used the AP demos, which you can find in the Account Resource Center. These videos do a beautiful job showing what BILL AP/AR looks like,” says Redmond.

“For the BILL Divvy Card, I typically introduce clients that I feel would be a good fit to our BILL account manager,” adds Jenkins. “Our BILL account manager will reach out to our client to offer a demo and answer any questions they have to get them started with the application. I typically join the demo meeting to guide the conversation based on the client's needs and help reinforce to my clients why it’s a good match for them. As my clients are getting started with BILL, I typically recommend that they continue to reach out to the BILL implementation team for setup and onboarding. We also are closely involved with the onboarding process as well to help with tasks like integrating the BILL Divvy Card with QuickBooks Online.” 

‍Resources

• Client onboarding guides and checklists
• Interactive client demos for BILL AP/AR and BILL Spend & Expense 
• Use the BILL Accountant Console for AP demos. Login in, select demos from the left-hand menu, then choose “create demo.”  

3. Educate your clients

Redmond recommends broadening your training efforts. After all, not everyone using BILL will be accountants. 

“Maybe your client’s marketing manager is going to be an approver on some bills,” Redmond outlines. “It’s great to have some training for them—maybe a zoom training session or a one-pager that shows them how to download the BILL app on their mobile phone and approve a bill.” 

‍Resources

• Explore BILL one-pagers for clients, covering AP/AR and Spend & Expense. Each handout has room to add your firm’s logo for co-branding. 

4. Continue education after onboarding

Once your client is on BILL, it’s important to keep the conversation going. 

“Communication with clients those first weeks and months is important,” explains Redmond. “You’re checking in on them and seeing how it's going. There are always things you can help them with as they get going. They won't know all the features yet, and you can remind them and share tips.”

You’ll also want to make sure that your staff continue learning about BILL, as new updates are released that can be helpful for your firm and its clients. 

Redmond Accounting designates a different staff member as a BILL champion every year. That person is in charge of staying up-to-date with BILL’s new releases and keeping the team informed. The team can then discuss how to share these updates with your clients. 

Jenkins suggests staying involved in the community–going to conferences, learning from other firms, and getting involved in online communities, Facebook groups, and LinkedIn groups. He mentioned how impactful it was when he started attending industry events like Scaling New Heights.

‍Resources

• Stay updated on the latest BILL news, product updates, and CPE eligible webinars by reading the monthly customer newsletter. It’s sent automatically to firm employees. Request to be added by emailing here.
• Be sure to visit the BILL Accountant Resource Center regularly for information on trends, implementing and onboarding products, how to market, and more.

Interested in learning more about BILL Spend & Expense or BILL AP/AR? Reach out to your account manager or request a demo. 

If you would like an introduction to your account manager, send us an email and we will connect you.

¹The BILL Divvy Card is issued by Cross River Bank, member FDIC.