Xero (ASX: XRO), the global small business platform, today announced a strategic partnership with BILL (NYSE: BILL), a leading financial operations platform for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), to extend accounts payable capabilities to Xero’s US customers.

Xero will embed a bill pay solution from BILL into the Xero platform. Once available, the solution will deeply integrate BILL’s robust payments options, allowing customers to more efficiently pay their bills, without leaving the Xero Platform. BILL is a trusted partner of leading US financial institutions, accounting firms, and accounting software providers.

There are more than 33 million SMBs in the US. Paying bills and getting paid on time are critical requirements for small businesses to effectively manage cash flow. However, this is still a very manual process for many small businesses. According to Xero’s Money Matters report, small businesses utilize multiple and disparate payment strategies to manage their cash flow.

Xero and BILL are partnering to make financial automation and cash flow management easier and more accessible for US Xero customers. Once the new embedded bill pay solution is available, small businesses will be able to avoid manual bank transfers, writing and mailing checks or entering credit card details to pay their bills. The solution will make it easier for small businesses and their advisors to reconcile transactions, regardless of their bank, and provide greater visibility and control over their cash flow. Every hour small businesses save through automation, is an hour they can invest in their business.

The bill pay solution will enable Xero customers to access BILL’s proprietary network of 5.8 million members — enabling small businesses to use the network to find their vendor and easily and efficiently start paying them straight away. More details about the bill pay solution will be made available later this calendar year.

Diya Jolly, Chief Product Officer, Xero said: “Xero is committed to helping small businesses run their operations and manage their finances as efficiently as possible through the Xero platform. Our partnership with BILL reflects how Xero can use strategic partnerships to support the three most important small businesses tasks - accounting, payments and payroll - in the US. This includes delivering payment solutions that help customers easily make and collect payments. Through our partnership with BILL, we can offer our customers more robust bill pay capabilities and broad payment choices, which further strengthens Xero’s US offering and reinforces our commitment to deepen customer support and engagement.”

Irana Wasti, Chief Product Officer at BILL said: “We are excited to bring an embedded bill pay solution and related financial operations capabilities to Xero customers. From the start, BILL has worked to serve the needs of SMBs and make it simpler to manage and optimize their cash flow. Our agile platform enables us to incorporate capabilities into partner solutions to extend our ability to serve more SMBs, wherever they want to do business.”

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