Set up, use, and maintain your Inbox

The Inbox allows you to receive all your bills and supporting documents in one place with unlimited storage to save time and increase efficiency.

Once documents have been added to the Inbox, they can be used to create new or associate to existing bills, invoices, payments received, vendors or customers.

A unique Inbox email address will be generated, which can be provided to vendors and customers so they can email bills and invoices directly into the account for processing.

All users can upload to the Inbox, but only users with Use Inbox permissions can setup the Inbox, and see or process documents after uploading

Jump to:

Set or change your inbox email address
Set or change your inbox preferences
User roles with permissions to view and manage documents
Bring in documents
Supported file formats
Process documents from the Inbox
- Document order and splitting
- Reorder document pages on a bill
Delete documents from the inbox
View documents in history, restore, or unassociate
Order a backup DVD of all documents
Troubleshoot issues uploading a file to the inbox
Handle spam in your inbox
Things to know

Set or change your inbox email address

By default, the inbox email address will be companyname@bill.com. For example: Acme and Company will be assigned the inbox email address acmeandcompany@bill.com. You can update the Inbox email address by taking the following steps:

Select Inbox in the navigation menu
Under Upload a bill, select edit next to the current inbox email address
Enter the new inbox email address, using a minimum of eight (8) characters in front of the @bill.com domain
Select Save

Provide this email address to your vendors so bills can now be sent directly to the BILL account.

Edit your inbox email address

From the inbox page

Select Edit next to the current inbox email address
Enter new inbox email prefix
Select Save

Note: documents sent to your old inbox address won't forward to the new one after you change the address

Set or change your inbox preferences

Grid view and List view

You can switch between grid view and list view in your inbox at any time by selecting the view name you'd prefer in the top right corner of the inbox.

Emails

After uploading or receiving your first document, you'll see an inbox preference popup, asking how you'd like to handle incoming emails that have a message in the email body (you can change this later if needed, steps below).

Bring attachments and email messages into the inbox as individual documents: emails with content in the body will be in the inbox as separate documents
- Use this setting if you receive documents, invoices, or bills embedded in the email body
Only bring in attachments (disregard email messages): anything entered into the body of the email will be ignored, and only attached documents will be shown in your inbox
- Emails received with no attachments will be shown in the inbox.

Attachments

The first time you select Enter Bill on a document with more than one page, you'll see the option to select your preference to attach all pages, or just the first page of multi-page documents to bills by default.

Edit your preferences at any time

On the Inbox page, select the inbox gear icon, it should be next to the inbox email address
Edit your preferences:
- Emails
  - Keep both email messages and attachments: emails with content in the body will be in the inbox as separate documents
    - Use this setting if you receive documents, invoices, or bills embedded in the email body
  - Keep only attachments: anything entered into the body of the email will be ignored, and only attached documents will be shown in your inbox
- Attachments
  - Include only the first page of an attachment
  - Include all pages of an attachment
Select Save

User roles with permissions to view and manage documents

The following roles have permission to view documents:

Administrator
Accountant
Payer
Clerk

Of these four (4) roles that can view documents, the following can also manage documents:

Administrators
Accountants
Clerks

The role of Approver doesn't have permission to view or manage documents.

The role of Payer can view documents, but not manage them.

For more information about Users and Roles, review the list of Roles in your account:

Select Settings
Under Permissions, select Roles
Select a User Role to view the permissions

Bring in documents

All users can upload documents to the inbox, but only users with Use Inbox permissions can see or process those documents after uploading.

You can bring documents into the BILL inbox four (4) different ways:

Email: Email the document to the BILL inbox email address
Drag and drop: Locate the document on your computer and drag the document into the Drag and drop box
Browse your computer: Select Browse your computer, locate and select the document, select Open
Fax: Fax the document(s) to the inbox fax number
The time and date each document arrived to the inbox will on the top right of each document

Supported file formats

Documents can be stored as any file format in Bill.com. The file types that will show a preview in your inbox are:

Adobe PDF (version 5.0 or later)
- If the pdf is password protected, a preview won't be available. We suggest not using password protected files as a best practice.
Microsoft Word (version 97 & 2003 or later)
PowerPoint (version 97; 2003 or later)
Excel (version 97; 2003 or later)
.txt
.png
.jpg
.gif

There are times when a PDF doesn't display an image. We work with a 3rd-party vendor to process this image conversion and will continue to improve the process so that the impact of this issue is limited.

Document needs to be less than 25MB in size
For files up to 250 pages, preview will show 250 pages
For files with more than 250 pages, no preview will be displayed
Documents/attachments can be stripped of data when they're auto forwarded to the inbox. It's recommended to email the document directly to the inbox.
Any files arriving to the inbox as logo type files will be filtered to the inbox history tab

Process documents from the inbox

There are multiple options when processing a document from the BILL inbox.

Create a new

Bill
Vendor credit
Payment received
New document for
- Company
- Account
- Customer
- Invoice
- Payment received
- Vendor

Add to an existing

Bill
Vendor Credit
Vendor document
Company document

Document order and splitting

Scan multiple invoices for different vendors all at once. Separate them as you create bills:

Select the document you'd like to use in your inbox
- If this a multi-page document and you haven't set a default preference, you'll see a pop up to set your preference to attach all pages by default, or just the first page. You can set your selection to be the default, and this can be changed later.
- You select which pages to include by selecting All or None next to associate to bill to include all/none, or check the box per page to select individual pages
- Check Associate to bill for each page you'd like to include
- Any pages not included will be available to use later
Select the action you'd like to take:
- Select Enter Bill to create a new bill
- Select another option to select Add to Existing bill, New document, etc.
- Select Add to recent to quickly associate one or more pages to one of the last 5 most recently created bills.
Complete bill details (or document, etc.)
Select Save and close, or Save and next if creating a bill
- Select save and next to save a bill, and the next unassociated page will open in the bill creation window
- If all pages have been associated, the next unprocessed document in your inbox will open

Reorder document pages on a bill

Once you have saved a bill, you can edit that bill and reorder the pages within the attachment if needed:

Use arrows to move selected pages up or down
Drag to re-order the pages
Enter a page # to move the selected page to the right order
Select Apply to see the re-order reflected immediately.

Delete documents from the inbox

When deleting documents from the inbox, we'll ask you to confirm you'd like to delete the item, but you can select not to have to see that confirmation each time if you'd like.

Delete inbox items

Select one or multiple items to delete, and select Delete.

Delete a page from a multi-page document

Enter the page number or navigate to the page with the arrows and select the trash can icon to delete the page.

Delete an attachment

If you have your inbox set to list view and want to delete an attachment from an email with multiple attachments, select the attachment thumbnail and then the trash can icon on the attachment.

View documents in history, restore, or unassociate

Every document to ever arrive to the Inbox is stored in Inbox history, regardless if it was subsequently deleted, added to a bill, etc. Documents can't be permanently deleted from history. You can restore (undelete) these documents, or remove them from a bill, vendor, etc. (unassociate) from the Inbox history, which will move the document back to the Inbox for processing.

Note: You must have Use Inbox permissions to view and edit documents in the Inbox, or Inbox history

In BILL:

Select Inbox
Select the caret arrow next to Unprocessed and select History

This view displays the Files History, which lists every document sent to the BILL Inbox, again, including deleted documents. Also show are the details including: Added By (user, email address, etc.) File Name, Added On (date), number of pages, and File Size. From either view, you can then filter the view to see a specific time period:

To restore the document, select on the document name, and undelete:
To remove the document from a bill or record, select on the document name, and unassociate:

Order a digital download of all documents

A backup copy of the data in the BILL account is available by request from an Administrator on the BILL account. A digital download of data contains bill documents and canceled checks that have been processed in BILL.

Cost and shipping details

The cost for a digital download via Box is $50.00 per BILL account for your records request.

Orders typically process within 14 business days. You won't need to set up a Box account to access the download. You can make your own physical copy from the digital download option.

When the download is ready, we'll call the requestor via phone for identity verification. Once verified, we'll send you a link to download a folder from Box to your computer via the ticket your request created in the Message Center.

The link will expire seven (7) calendar days from the date it is sent. Please make sure you access this link before it expires and download what you need.

The password to access the data is sent in a separate email to the email address used to request the historical data. Look for an email from noreply-historicaldata@hq.bill.com.

To ensure the security of the data, we require that access to your BILL account have multi-factor authentication (MFA)/2-Step verification enabled. If this has not already been set up, you will be prompted to do so before we can process your request. See Resources below on how to set up multi-factor authentication (MFA)/2 step verification.

Before you order

To make sure the information for your DVD is correct:

Process all documents in the BILL Inbox
Confirm that all check payments have cleared
Confirm that the check images have been uploaded to the BILL account

Ordering instructions

Select this link to open the Historical Data Request form to submit your request.

Historical Data Request

Note: The request must be submitted by an Administrator on the BILL account.

What is included in the digital download

The following sections are sorted by create date:

Vendor & Customer Bills & Invoices: Original File, Created Date, Vendor, Invoice Number, Amount (in the original format it was uploaded)
Vendor Credits: Original File, Created Date, Vendor, Ref Number, Amount (in the original format it was uploaded)
Checks Images: Vendor Name, Payment Amount, Check Number, Check Date (in PDF format)

How the data is presented in the digital download folder

To access the information on the DVD, a randomly-generated password is emailed to the requesting Administrator on the request ticket when the DVD is shipped
Files are sent in compressed .zip files, you'll need a program that can open those types of files
One Folder for Documents
One Folder for Cleared Checks
Index (searchable links to documents)

Troubleshoot issues uploading a file to the inbox

Any file sent to the Bill.com Inbox must be smaller than 25 MB. If a file is larger than 25MB, look at ways to reduce its size before sending the file to the Bill.com Inbox.

Common issues and suggested solutions

If a pdf is password protected, a preview won't be available, and the file itself may not be accessible. We suggest not using password protected files as a best practice.
Review the file to see if it's unnecessarily high-definition or has dimensions that are needlessly large. Consider reducing the resolution to maintain a reasonable fidelity, but allows for a reduction in the file size.
By default, most scanners will scan documents at 300 DPI (Dots Per Inch). Depending on the number of pages, this can create a file size greater than 25MB. Decreasing the scanner's DPI setting to 100 DPI will create smaller files without a loss of quality.
Check the file for images. Too many images can dramatically increase the file size of a document. Consider removing unnecessary images or pages from the document to reduce the file size.
Review the file for color. If possible, try scanning in black and white rather than color. This will reduce file size.
Review the number of pages. There may be a large number of pages in the file. You may need to split the document into multiple documents so that each set of pages is below the 25MB limit. You can then add multiple documents to a customer, vendor, or bill.
Review the file type. Generally speaking, files meeting the above criteria that are of types: .pdf, Word files (.doc, .docx, etc), Excel files (.xls .csv, etc), .txt, .gif, .png, .jpg, and .jpeg will reliably upload.

Handle spam in your inbox

To ensure that all documents are delivered into the Bill.com Inbox, we don't filter any emails sent to the Inbox email address. If spam arrives in the Bill.com Inbox, you can attempt to unsubscribe from future emails. Mark it as spam and we'll make attempts to limit these emails in the future.

Mark an Inbox item as Spam

On the Inbox page, select the checkbox for the document to mark as Spam
Select Spam
Select Delete

Tip to prevent spam

An Inbox email address with a single simple word, for instance Payables@bill.com, tends to be easy for spammers to find and add to their blasts. To reduce the chance of spammers blasting messages to the Bill.com Inbox, we recommend using a more complex Inbox email address that's unique to your company, but still familiar to your vendors and customers. You can update the Inbox email address to something specific, like YourcompanyPayables@bill.com. The Inbox email address must have at least eight characters in front of the @bill.com domain. Ideally, your company's Bill.com Inbox email address will have even more characters than that, adding to the complexity.

Things to know

Users without Use Inbox permissions will see the inbox, but it'll be a limited view. They can browse and upload, drag and drop, or email documents to the inbox. Once uploaded, they won't see the document in the inbox, but a message that lets them know the document was uploaded successfully. Users with permissions can then process the document as needed.
BILL allows for each document to be associated with one bill or item only. If needing to create multiple bills with the same document, send the same document to the BILL Inbox multiple times for each bill as needed.