Bill Pay overview

Mercury Bill Pay is an automated accounts payable solution that helps you manage and pay company bills from your Mercury account. Bills sent to your dedicated inbox are automatically, organized by approval status and due date, and can be scheduled for payment via ACH, check, or wire. You can also sync bill data directly to your accounting software. 

This article walks through setting up Bill Pay, managing requests, sending payments, and integrating with your accounting software.

Setting up Bill Pay

1. Head to Bill Pay under Workflows in the left-hand menu
2. Click Get Started or the gear icon to manage settings
3. Copy your dedicated bill pay email address or edit it as needed
   • You can forward bills here, set up auto-forwarding, or ask vendors to send bills directly
4. Set up approval rules to control which bills require review
5. Add approved senders. Emails from unknown senders will still appear in your inbox but will be flagged for review
6. (Optional) Connect your accounting software:
   • Supported platforms include: QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite

You can adjust your bill pay settings anytime from the Bill Pay dashboard by clicking the gear icon.

Reviewing and organizing bills

From the Bill Pay dashboard, you’ll see:

• Inbox: New bills forwarded or uploaded to your account
• Needs Approval: Bills waiting for approval by designated admins
• Scheduled: Payments that have been scheduled but not yet sent
• Paid: History of completed bill payments

Each bill shows its due date, amount, and approval status. You can filter by status or due date. 

Paying a bill

You can add and pay bills in a few ways:

• Click Upload Bill in the Bill Pay dashboard
• Go to Move Money > Send, then upload or drag in a bill
• Dropping an invoice into your bill inbox or forward to your bill pay email

Payment workflow

1. Upload your bill (PDF only) and view a preview of the bill on the right side of your screen.
   • Each bill must be uploaded as a separate PDF
   • You can drag and drop multiple PDFs at once
2. We automatically scan the bill and extract details using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
   • Tip: Click into any auto-filled field during the payment flow to highlight the source text in the bill preview
3. Select a recipient
   • Mercury will try to match the bill to an existing recipient. If no match is found, you can create a new recipient using details from the uploaded bill
4. Choose a payment method
   • Supported methods include: ACH, check, domestic wire, international wire
   • Verify your recipient’s bank details
5. Set the payment amount, send date, and funding source
   • You can also schedule recurring payments
6. (Optional) Add a GL code if you use an accounting integration
   • If you're connected to QuickBooks Online, Xero, or NetSuite, you'll see the option to tag the bill with a GL code. Only bills with a GL code will sync to your accounting software.
   • If you are on our Mercury Plus/Pro plans and use QuickBooks Online or Netsuite, you will have the ability to toggle from “Single GL Code” to “Multiple GL Codes”, which allows you to categorize a bill by one or more GL codes and sync the payment to your accounting software.
7. Complete the Details step
   • Confirm the name to display on the payment, add an optional memo, and choose whether to send an email receipt.
   • You'll also see the invoice number, date, and due date pulled from the bill. You can add an internal note or upload attachments if needed.
8. Review your payment to ensure details are correct and click Send or Schedule to complete the payment
   • Immediate payments will appear in your Transactions list. Scheduled payments appear in both Scheduled Bills and Scheduled Payments.
   • If a payment requires approval, approvers can review it from the Needs Approval section on either the Bill Pay or Payments page. Learn more about approvals here.

Tips & reminders

• Supported payment types include: ACH, check, or domestic/international wire. Delivery timelines vary by method.
• Each bill must be its own PDF: If uploading multiple bills, attach each one as a separate file
• You can upload multiple PDFs at once: Mercury will queue them in your Inbox so you can review and process one at a time

Syncing with accounting software

If you’ve connected your accounting platform:

• Add a GL code when reviewing or sending a bill
• When a payment is scheduled, the bill will sync as unpaid
• Once paid, it will be marked as paid in your accounting system

To sync as a bill (not just an expense), the uploaded bill must include at least one of:

• Invoice number
• Invoice date
• Due date

You can find this section on the Details step when making a payment. If none of these fields are filled out, the payment will sync to your accounting software as an expense when it is paid — it will not sync as a bill.

If you use another accounting software (or none at all), you can still use bill pay to upload, manage and pay bills.