Relay Bill Pay lets you upload, approve, and pay bills from your Relay Account, with feature availability tiered across the Starter, Grow, and Scale Plans.
What is Relay Bill Pay?
Relay Bill Pay is the accounts payable workflow built into your Relay Account. It gives you one place to receive invoices, route them for approval, and send payment by ACH, check, or wire without a separate bill pay tool.
You can upload bills manually, forward invoices to a dedicated Relay inbox, track each bill's status in a central dashboard, and connect the workflow to QuickBooks Online or Xero for automatic syncs.
Who can use Bill Pay?
Every Relay Account includes Bill Pay, and access inside the account is controlled by role. The three roles are:
Administrators: manage bills, schedule payments, and assign roles
Approvers: review and approve bills, but cannot pay them
Contributors: upload and edit bills, without approval or payment permissions
The feature set expands as you move up subscription plans. Every plan includes the core workflow; the Grow Plan and Scale Plan add batched vendor payments and additional automation.
How does Bill Pay work?
Bill Pay follows a five-stage lifecycle from intake to payment:
Intake. Upload a bill or forward an invoice PDF to your dedicated Relay Bill Pay email address.
Review. Relay extracts the invoice details (vendor, amount, invoice date, due date, line items) and adds the bill to your dashboard.
Approve. The assigned approver reviews and approves the bill under your approval rules.
Schedule. Pick a payment method (ACH, check, or wire) and a payment date.
Pay and reconcile. Relay sends the payment, updates the bill status automatically, and syncs the transaction to QuickBooks Online or Xero if connected.
What features are included on each plan?
Every plan includes the core Bill Pay workflow. Advanced automation lives on the Grow Plan and Scale Plan.
Feature | Starter Plan | Grow Plan | Scale Plan |
Bill upload and email forwarding | Included | Included | Included |
Approval rules | Included | Included | Included |
QuickBooks Online and Xero connections | Included | Included | Included |
Payments by ACH, check, and wire | Included | Included | Included |
Vendor records and audit trail | Included | Included | Included |
Batched vendor payments | Not included | Included | Included |
Custom categorization rules | Not included | Coming soon | Coming soon |
Partial payments | Not included | Coming soon | Coming soon |
Bill insights dashboard | Not included | Not included | Coming soon |
Bulk payments | Not included | Not included | Coming soon |
Custom CSV exports | Not included | Not included | Coming soon |
Core capabilities on every plan:
Uploading bills manually or forwarding invoices to your Relay Bill Pay inbox
Tracking bill status (approved, scheduled, paid) in a central dashboard
Paying bills by ACH, check, or wire from your Relay Account
Connecting QuickBooks Online or Xero for automatic syncs
Marking bills as paid when handled outside Relay
Storing vendor records with remittance details and an audit trail
Adding bills to your business's approval rules
Grow Plan and Scale Plan add:
Batched vendor payments to consolidate multiple bills into one payment run
Custom categorization rules to automate accounting classifications (coming soon)
Partial payments for cash flow flexibility (coming soon)
Bulk payments and custom CSV exports (Scale Plan only, coming soon)
Bill insights dashboard for spend trends and cash planning (Scale Plan only, coming soon)
How do I turn on Bill Pay?
Bill Pay is available on every Relay Account, so there is nothing to activate. To open the feature:
Sign in to your Relay account.
Go to Payments and click Bills or Pay a Bill.
Upload your first bill, forward an invoice to your Relay Bill Pay email, or connect QuickBooks Online or Xero to begin.
What do the bill payment statuses mean?
Every bill you pay through Relay moves through three statuses, updated automatically as the payment progresses:
Scheduled: the payment has been submitted and is queued to be processed.
Processing: Relay has begun moving the money, and the transaction has not yet cleared.
Paid: the bill has been paid and marked as such; no manual update is required.
You can see the current status of any bill in the Bill Pay dashboard.
Can I pay a bill from the Payments dashboard instead?
Yes. You can start a bill payment from the Payments section of your Relay account without going to the Bills tab first. To do this:
Open the Payments section and select a payment method (for example, ACH or Domestic Wire).
Upload a copy of the bill or invoice in the Have a bill handy? field. Relay reads the invoice number, line items, amounts, invoice date, and due date automatically.
Verify the invoice and payment details before you confirm the payment.
Send the payment. Relay moves the invoice into the Bills section and syncs it to your connected accounting software.
What tips help a smooth start?
Four habits save the most time in the first month:
Use your Relay Bill Pay inbox. Every business gets a unique forwarding address. Send invoices to that address for quick intake.
Set up your approval workflow up front. Custom approval rules keep bills moving and prevent unauthorized payments.
Invite vendors with a secure link. Collect payment details through Relay's request flow so sensitive vendor data does not sit in email.
Watch payment cutoff times. ACH transfers and wires follow bank processing windows; schedule payments ahead of the deadline you need to hit.
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