Accounts payable (AP) has a way of getting messy. At 10 vendors, a manual process can still hold together: invoices land in email, approvals happen over Slack, payment details get collected when they’re missing, and accounting gets cleaned up later.
At 100 vendors, the cracks get harder to ignore. Bills take more follow-ups and the team spends an increasing amount of time switching between tools just to get invoices approved, paid, and reconciled.
Relay’s Finance team reached that point as our AP needs grew. Before adopting Relay Bill Pay in August 2025, the team managed invoices, approvals, vendor payment details, payment execution, and accounting updates across multiple systems. Centralizing the workflow into our Bill Pay product brought AP from three platforms down to one.
This article explores how that works in practice: how Relay uses Bill Pay to manage roughly 100 bills per month, route approvals, pay bills in batches, keep vendors updated, and simplify reconciliation.
One inbox for every invoice
Before Relay’s Finance team moved our AP workflow into Bill Pay, invoice intake depended on too many manual steps. Vendors sent invoices through email, Finance downloaded them from email threads, and the team had to make sure each bill made it into the right payment process.
Now, vendors send invoices to a dedicated billing address. From there, each invoice lands directly in Relay’s Bills Inbox, where a draft bill is automatically created and built-in document recognition reads the invoice, pulling in details like the vendor name, invoice amount, and due date.
That gives the whole AP workflow a cleaner starting point. Instead of chasing invoices across threads or manually routing bills, the team starts with bills already captured consistently in the same place they’ll be reviewed, approved, paid, and synced to accounting, with less administrative overhead.
No more chasing payment details
Even when an invoice was ready, missing ACH details could stop the payment from moving forward. Relay’s Finance team couldn’t process payment without the vendor’s banking information.
Before, the team had to ask vendors for details, wait for a response, and add the information manually. Now, the team uses the request payment details feature, which sends vendors a secure form directly from Relay so they can submit their banking information themselves.
Payment details stay connected to the bill, where Finance needs them. Sensitive vendor details no longer have to pass through email just to get a bill paid.
Approval workflows that enforce themselves
Once the bill and payment details are in place, approval keeps payments controlled. Our Finance team uses amount-based rules to make sure each bill reaches the correct approver before money moves.
Bills under a set threshold route to a manager, while bills above that threshold go to the CFO. When a bill is submitted for approval, the approver is notified by email and in the Relay platform. If the bill is still waiting, Finance can use the nudge feature, which sends the approver a reminder from within Relay and keeps the follow-up connected to the bill instead of a separate message thread.
Once a rule is in place, Relay enforces it. Finance can review the bill, prepare it, and keep it moving, but the pay button stays disabled until approval is secured. Oversight and accountability stay intact as volume grows, without relying on disconnected approval processes.
Batch payments cut the repetition
At roughly 100 bills per month, paying one bill at a time creates its own workload. The Finance team had to open each bill, check the details, submit the payment, and enter a 2FA code for each transaction.
Now, the team can group approved bills together and pay them in batches. Most batches include five to 10 bills at a time, giving Finance a faster way to move through the monthly AP run without repeating the same payment steps for every bill.
Instead of entering a code for every payment, Finance enters one code for each batch. That removes one of the most repetitive steps that used to sit between approval and payment.
Vendors always know where their money is
Vendor follow-up kept adding friction even after bills were paid. If a vendor wanted to know when they were getting paid, Relay’s Finance team had to find the payment, pull the receipt, and send the update manually.
Now, Relay automatically notifies vendors when a payment is processing. As long as the vendor’s email address is on file, they get the update without Finance having to send a separate confirmation.
That keeps payment status visible to vendors, not just Finance. It also helps the inbound “where’s my payment?” emails disappear because vendors already know when funds are on the way.
One source of truth for accounting
After vendors are updated, the payment trail still has to land cleanly in accounting. Relay’s Finance team had to cross-reference three systems to confirm the bill, payment, and accounting record lined up.
Now, bills sync automatically to Xero or QuickBooks Online once approved and paid. That removes double entry, keeps payment status tied to the bill, and reflects payment details in accounting without manual bookkeeping at month-end.
For a team reconciling roughly 2,000 transactions each month, fewer systems means less manual checking. Relay becomes the source of record, so Finance can see what happened without piecing the record together manually.
AP that keeps up with growth
Growing businesses often outgrow manual AP processes long before they realize it. As bills increase, approvals, payments, vendor management, and reconciliation become harder to manage across disconnected systems.
Our Finance team uses Relay Bill Pay because it centralizes the whole AP workflow in one place, from intake to reconciliation. For growing teams, that means less complexity, fewer disconnected systems, and more control over how bills get approved, paid, and recorded.
Learn how Relay Bill Pay helps businesses manage AP from invoice intake and approvals to payments, vendor updates, and reconciliation.
