Streamline Your Invoice Handling for NPOs with airSlate SignNow

Invoice handling for NPOs

in the ring today we have bill.com in melio and we're going to be talking about which would be the best tool for your organization to use now both are bill pay slash AP platforms but we're going to dive into a little bit deeper to really discover what that even really means now bill pay can be a very muddied function right but it is an important function it's an important area of the entire fiscal management accounting function and so we got to deal with it right because you got to pay them people right so let's talk about which one will be best for your organization now I want to start by saying I am actually a fan of both tools but the clients that I use them with actually use them for different reasons we actually also use it internally in our firm and as I get into some of the more details I'm going to actually talk about which clients prefer to use build.com and why and which clients prefer to use melion Y and of course we do influence that decision as accountant but it is important to understand the needs of your organization what exactly it is that you're trying to accomplish because that will ultimately determine which tool is going to be best for you so first we're going to kind of dive into design slash how we use it right so when you first log into bill.com I'm not gonna lie it does have a more professional feel so to speak right it does feel more professional sorry melio love you but you know it is what it is right I love YouTube but just for different reasons but when you get into build.com it does have a more professional feel and you can kind of tell right off of the bat that it is more robust right and so that is just one thing right there that kind of Set It Off for me too depending on the client now I will say because it does have that more professional feel there is a lot more going on so there is some moving around and clicking on things and truly learning that you have to do and I will say like even with us using bill.com here with some of our clients we did do a lot of research about using the tool we did a demo but then we also when we onboarding you have when we onboarded we had the option to actually meet with um an internal rep or you know sales rep or something like that and he like walked us through everything because it didn't feel easy if that makes sense now when you look at melio on the other hand when you log in right off the bat it has a very simplistic and like easy feel to it but it does get give basic and so you don't need to do too much clicking around because there isn't much that you can do right and so depending on what you're using a tool for again that will kind of let you know like are you looking for simplistic ease of use you know you ain't paying a lot of people and again I'll get a little bit more into those details but um just right off the bat when you kind of log in this is the field that you get and so with bill.com a lot more robust there is a bit more of a learning curve in my opinion with melio you can kind of like log in and get straight to using it now with bill.com there's a lot of depth to the platform right deep automations um multiple Integrations so not only with QuickBooks online but QuickBooks desktop other accounting softwares and expense management tools and it's important to highlight that because if you are a non-profit that does a lot of spending you know if you have a more robust AP function and you also use an expense management tool it might be important to make sure that your AP platform also integrates with your expense management tool now Melia on the other hand does integrate with QuickBooks online but that's where you know the stocks eat enough right and so it's not necessarily a con on their end but that is kind of the gist of their Integrations one of my other favorite things about bill.com is that you can get a dedicated email where vendors can send your bills or you can you know email your bills to that email it'll automatically be into the system where you can then choose of course that next step with melio you don't get a dedicated email but you can upload um or manually uh import a bill and so it is you know it doesn't require too much clicking around for some reason I do find with bill.com it feels um a bit easier in that way especially if you're an organization that has like a lot of bills a lot of vendors um with melio typically we see like if it's kind of just contractors you know independent contractors that you're paying really simple you can upload the invoice and you can choose which account actually in your chart of accounts um it goes to you know not too bad not too shabby and the last thing I'll say about the whole design and how to use the tool is uh the ability to have multiple users to designate their roles now in melio it really is simple um so we as accountants we get can get access to your melio account and we can set an approver role right so that means that we can get in there enter the bills make sure everything is on an up and up and then submit it to the approver who let's say in this case might be like the operations manager or the executive director they can then actually go in take a look at it if everything looks good they can actually have the final say of yes this Bill gets paid bill.com does the same thing but it is a bit more robust right you can have a lot of different roles um there's a lot of different automation that can be set up within those roles and so again if you have an accounting team if you have multiple people that have a hand in that accounting um accounts payable process says something like bill.com would actually be better now you know I know you might be thinking okay you said all of that but what about the price now here's where you know things get a little bit more sticky melio is free for the most part melio is free I love that about the tool especially for organizations that are a bit smaller and you're just looking to maybe pay a few contractors pay a few vendors you don't need a tool that is going to charge you right and so Melia was free it does charge for expedited payments for payments where you are using a credit or debit card or expedited checks but if you are paying like if you're through your bank account ACH and you're okay with it taking three days it's free and it works and that is something that I really do like about the platform bill.com is a subscription-based tool and so there is a fee it's actually rather expensive and so it is not something that I recommend to a lot of clients or all clients it really depends on how I'll bust your AP function is and so with will.com there is a 39 subscription a 59 and then a 69 subscription of course it always depends right that's essential team and corporate depending on how many people actually have to have their hands on in the process will determine of course the level that you want to subscribe to but it ain't free okay and it can get pricey you know now you might be thinking okay you said all of that but which do we actually use well I hope it actually has been clear that if you are a smaller organization you're looking for something that's um affordable cost efficient if you're just paying a couple of vendors or contracts contractors here and there then melio is going to be the perfect tool for you especially if you're using QuickBooks Online which I hope that you are because it integrates with QuickBooks online and it's free you can set your vendors up you can pay them automatically what I do love about it is that you can put in their information they get the email on their end to go ahead and set up their payment details and then from therefore it's on unless there's a change you can just continue paying them with fees now if you are a bigger organization you have a robust accounts payable function there are multiple roles within that accounts payable function then you might want to think about bill.com right because it really does support larger organizations and so I wanted to kind of help you with giving you some ideas about how our clients use them so the clients that use melio are much smaller organizations and they typically are just paying like contractors or maybe a couple of vendors and when I say a couple I literally mean like a handful my clients that use bill.com have a more robust accounts payable function so typically they actually usually have a facility meaning that they are not just virtual and so they are paying things like utilities like rent right um a lot more hardcore bills not just paying people vendors uh independent contractors right and so it works it also works for those clients bill.com also works for those clients who need multiple levels of like review and approvals right and so it helps to make the process more streamlined and efficient and so typically when we're determining which tool is going to be best for clients that come on we usually dive deep into who are you actually paying right what are the operations behind AP because that help us to know like do you really need something that's super robust or you're just paying a couple of contractors let's go ahead and use melio right and so um hope that this video was helpful hope that it shed some light on the two tools again I love both I just use them for different things right and so um depending on what you need will help you to determine which tool you should be using and so that is it for this video that's it for this round I hope that you found it helpful if you have any questions please drop them in the comments below and if not subscribe so you can you know be notified and all that good stuff about when the next video comes out see you soon