Shopify has launched Shopify Bill Pay, a tool for managing vendors’ bills and paying them directly without leaving the dashboard. The new tool, developed by American fintech company Melio, streamlines the process of expense management without any additional subscription fees.
It promises to help Shopify merchants save 16 hours of paying business bills on a monthly average. Shopify Bill Pay is twice the faster as other B2B solutions available to manage expenses.
Shopify Bill Pay is part of the Canadian giant’s powerful suite of financial solutions. These tools help local merchants manage financial operations with ease and save time to focus on business growth and expansion.
Through our partnership with Melio, Shopify Bill Pay will give merchants more time to invest back into their business and brings us one step closer to advancing our mission of making commerce better for everyone.
Shruti Patel, Global Head, Merchant Services Partnerships and Monetization, Shopify
Why is it Important?
No merchant, whether of small or large scale, like to manage expenses. Small tasks involving invoices take a toll on merchants’ minds. However, expenses grow in proportion to the growth of the business. You can’t ignore it but time is equally important, especially for small merchants.
Shopify Bill Pay not only reduces the time that you spend on administrative processes but also builds a long-term expense management flow to make operations easier.
The e-commerce platform added Shopify Bill Pay to its suite of financial solutions on Monday. Currently, it is only available for Shopify merchants based in the United States.
Melio, Shopify’s partner developer for this project, has tried to reduce friction for merchants and allowed them to track expenses. The tool is easy to use and requires no knowledge of coding. You can manage vendors from within the Shopify admin dashboard.
“Over the last few years, we’ve built out a robust offering of embedded fintech solutions that empower our merchants to build and sell their products,” Shruti Patel, Global Head of Merchant Services Partnerships and Monetization at Shopify, said in a statement.
“Through our partnership with Melio, Shopify Bill Pay will give merchants more time to invest back into their business and brings us one step closer to advancing our mission of making commerce better for everyone,” Patel added.
Shopify Bill Pay comes with multiple benefits for its merchant partners. Some of its benefits include:
1. Schedule
The new tool allows merchants to schedule future payments on an early basis. You can easily schedule the payments using the Shopify admin dashboard. A schedule is important for regular payments, for which you know a certain amount will be paid on a particular date. This not only helps you save time but also creates a business flow with little effort.
Shopify Bill Pay will bring a whole new experience to merchants who are overwhelmed by managing their inventories, preparing their stock for busy seasons, and keeping track of each vendor’s payment requirements.
Matan Bar, Co-founder and CEO, Melio
2. Different Payment Modes
Shopify Bill Pay supports various payment method solutions such as paying with credit. This works irrespective of whether the vendor accepts the payment in a similar or not. This is the best for paying multiple vendors as you don’t necessarily need to ask for preferred payment option from each vendor.
3. Dashboard
Within the Shopify admin dashboard, you see a seperate dashboard for Shopify Bill Pay. This dedicated dashboard helps you filter, sort out and schedule payments as per your business requirements. It is easy to operate and any member of your team can manage expenses using Shopify Bill Pay dashboard with much ease.
4. E-mail And Images
Shopify Bill Pay supports bills sent over e-mail and scans bills in image format as well. It uploads the bill to the system after a careful examination of expenses. From the dashboard, you can check for corrections and make necessary changes.
“We are excited to announce this unique partnership with Shopify that will simplify merchants’ bill-paying experience,” said Matan Bar, Melio’s co-founder and CEO, said.
“Shopify Bill Pay will bring a whole new experience to merchants who are overwhelmed by managing their inventories, preparing their stock for busy seasons, and keeping track of each vendor’s payment requirements,” Bar added.
Shopify Balance Integration
The tool can also be integrated with Shopify Balance as well. It doesn’t ask for subscription fees or sign-up charges from merchants. The bills can be paid for free using Shopify Balance accounts or ACH bank transfers.
Once integrated with Shopify Balance, Shopify Bill Pay also shares insights on the financial health of an online store. It helps you create physical and virtual business spending cards. For scheduling payments, Shopify Bill Pay allows you to pay four days earlier than a bank transfer.
Shopify Balance comes with additional cashback rewards and you get access to tax tool connections.
More About Shopify Balance
In November last year, B2B e-commerce payment experience company Balance launched its Shopify integration. Balance primarily provides essential internet infrastructure to businesses that aim to provide an easy-to-use buying experience to consumers and wholesale customers.
Shopify Balance allows merchants to streamline and fully automate the B2B payment procedure for their e-buyers. “There is an increasing need for payment solutions with real-time net terms, and our goal is to provide Shopify with a slick and simple payment experience that is suitable for B2B trade,” Bar Geron, CEO and co-founder of Balance, had said during the product launch.
After easy integration between Balance and the Shopify store, new customers instantly qualify for in-cart whereas returning customers get access to rolling net terms. Merchants do not have to wait for days or weeks to get their payment. They get the full amount of the invoice upfront.
Shopify Balance offers a payment experience made especially for B2B, giving the same convenience as B2C. The Balance app allows e-commerce merchants to give their customers an option to defer payment by up to two months. Customers will also be able to pay via multiple payment options like ACH, credit card or cheque.
What Users Have to Say?
Pittsburgh Spray, an industrial equipment supplier on Shopify Plus, said, “We evaluated a few providers to offer quick, seamless, simple online and offline net 30 account approvals and ordering for customers. For a small fee, Balance provided us with 100 percent upfront payment, whereas others didn’t provide anything close to this”.
“The integration to our online Shopify Plus store was a breeze and within 2-3 hours we had the integration up and running. We now have a quick and effective way to qualify new customers for net 30 purchases, directly on our site. Plus, we no longer have to put our own efforts towards collections,” the company added.
According to Bttn, a wholesaler of medical supplies, “We chose Balance as a great way to offer flexible and secure payment terms for Shopify customers. Their integration into the purchasing flow is a big unlock to accelerate revenue for commerce B2B companies.”
