Manage bills with the API

In Payabli, bills represent a bill from a vendor that a paypoint is expected to pay. Use managed payables with Payabli to turn those payouts to vendors into an income stream.

Basic bill workflow

1. When you get an invoice from a vendor or supplier, add it to Payabli as a bill via the API, File Exchange, or the web.
2. Update or delete bills, and then queue them for approval.
3. After bills are approved, make payout requests, and you can pay one or many bills.

Via an enablement process, your vendors are contacted to help decide on a payment method. The goal is that they choose to receive payments through virtual cards for ease, speed, and security of payment.

Considerations

Keep these points in mind when working with bills:

• You don’t have to use Payabli’s bill engine to make a payout. When making a payout request, set the query parameter doNotCreateBills to true.
• We strongly recommend including bill images with your bills. Including bill images can make payouts faster, more accurate, and prevent problems.
• You can pay more than one bill with one payout request. If several active bills added, queued, and ready to be paid, you can make a payout request to pay all active bills. Remittance information for that single payout request will include the details for all of the paid bills.
• Bill approval isn’t required. If a bill status is Active or Approved it can be sent for payout. If a bill status is Sent to Approval or Pending Approval you can’t send it for payout.
• You can use the OCR engine to capture data from uploaded bill images.

Create a bill

To create a single bill, send a POST request to /api/Bill/single/{entry}.

For complete information, see the API reference.

This example adds a bill to the entrypoint with ID 8cfec329267. The bill is for a vendor with the vendorNumber “‘1234-A”. The bill number is ABC-123, and the request includes an uploaded bill image, and optional fields like comments.

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curl -X POST https://api-sandbox.payabli.com/api/Bill/single/8cfec329267 \
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     -H "requestToken: <apiKey>" \
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     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
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     -d '{
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  "accountingField1": "MyInternalId",
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  "attachments": [
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    {
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      "filename": "my-doc.pdf",
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      "ftype": "pdf",
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      "furl": "https://mysite.com/my-doc.pdf"
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    }
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  ],
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  "billDate": "2024-07-01",
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  "billItems": [
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    {
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      "itemCost": 5,
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      "itemCategories": [
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        "deposits"
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      ],
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      "itemCommodityCode": "010",
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      "itemDescription": "Deposit for materials",
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      "itemMode": 0,
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      "itemProductCode": "M-DEPOSIT",
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      "itemProductName": "Materials deposit",
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      "itemQty": 1,
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      "itemTaxAmount": 7,
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      "itemTaxRate": 0.075,
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      "itemTotalAmount": 123,
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      "itemUnitOfMeasure": "SqFt"
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    }
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  ],
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  "billNumber": "ABC-123",
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  "comments": "Deposit for materials",
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  "dueDate": "2024-07-01",
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  "endDate": "2024-07-01",
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  "frequency": "monthly",
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  "mode": 0,
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  "netAmount": "3762.87",
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  "status": -99,
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  "terms": "NET30",
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  "vendor": {
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    "vendorNumber": "1234-A"
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  }
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}'

A successful response returns the bill ID in the responseData field.

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{
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  "isSuccess": true,
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  "responseCode": 1,
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  "responseData": 6101,
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  "responseText": "Success"
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}

If your workflow requires bill approval, you can send the bill to approval with the API. For more information, see Send a bill to approval.

After your bill is approved you can make a payout request to pay the bill. For more information, see Make a payout request.

Import bills

You can import a list of bills into Payabli using the API. This is useful if you have a large number of bills to add at once, or if you want to automate the process. Before you get started, download the example CSV file and open it with the editor of your choice. Use it as an example to help you build your import file.

To create a bill, send a POST request to the /api/Import/billsForm/{entrypoint} endpoint, with an attached CSV file.

This example imports billImport.csv for the entrypoint e56ce00572.

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curl -X POST https://api-sandbox.payabli.com/api/Import/billsForm/8cfec329267 \
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     -H "requestToken: <apiKey>" \
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     -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
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     -F file=@<file1>

A successful request returns a JSON response with the number of added and rejected records, and any errors. The imported data is now available for use, and you can confirm by checking PartnerHub or PayHub.

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{
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  "isSuccess": true,
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  "pageIdentifier": "null",
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  "responseCode": 1,
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  "responseData": {
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    "added": 26,
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    "errors": [
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      "errors",
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      "errors"
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    ],
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    "rejected": 2
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  },
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  "responseText": "Success"
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}

After you import bills, you can manage them with the API. For example, you can update or delete bills, send them for approval, and create payout requests.

Manage bills

You can also manage your bills via the API. See these endpoint references for more information:

• Update a bill
• Delete a bill
• Send a bill to approval
• Approve a bill