Lauren Johns
BILL (NYSE: BILL), the intelligent financial operations platform trusted by nearly half a million businesses to manage, move, and maximize their money, and Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB), the world’s leading provider of AI-powered solutions for social impact, today announced a new strategic partnership to simplify the accounts payable process for nonprofit and education finance teams.
Accounts payable remains one of the most manual and time-consuming responsibilities for many finance teams. According to the Institute of Financial Operations and Leadership’s Accounts Payable Automation Trends 2025 report, nearly half of organizations spend 10 or more hours each week processing invoices and administering payments. For nonprofit and education finance teams already balancing limited resources, every hour spent re-keying an invoice or chasing down an approval is time that could be spent supporting their organizations’ missions.
Payment Assistant™, powered by BILL, the new experience for Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® customers, will embed BILL’s business payments network and payment-processing capabilities into Blackbaud’s automated accounts payable workflow. This will support nonprofit finance teams from invoice and approval through payment and reconciliation, all in one connected system, built on Blackbaud’s Platform for Good™.
More Time for Mission, Less Time on Manual Work
Payment Assistant uses intelligent automation to bring together tiered approvals, payment tracking, and straight-through reconciliation, so finance teams spend less time chasing signatures and re-keying invoices and more time advancing their organization’s mission. With BILL’s capabilities embedded in Payment Assistant, Financial Edge NXT customers gain access to BILL’s proprietary network of 9 million businesses, helping simplify vendor enrollment and accelerate vendor payments without leaving the system they already trust.
“Finance teams should not have to choose between an efficient payments experience and the systems they trust to run their organizations,” said Jonathan Leaf, Chief Revenue Officer of BILL. “As the intelligent financial operations platform trusted by nearly 500,000 businesses, BILL is bringing that same scale and expertise to the social impact sector. Together with Blackbaud, we’re helping nonprofit and education finance teams reduce manual work, safeguard every payment, and spend less time on process and more time on purpose.”
Sudip Datta, Chief Product Officer of Blackbaud, added, “Finance teams in the nonprofit and education sectors need connected systems that remove friction from essential work without taking control away from the people responsible for it. This partnership is part of Blackbaud’s broader connected-finance vision, bringing data, workflows, intelligent assistance, and partner capabilities together within the systems social impact organizations use every day. As we continue to invest in AI-powered financial management and work with best-in-class providers like BILL, we are helping customers address critical operational workflows from donation to disbursement with greater clarity, capacity and control.”
The partnership is designed to give Financial Edge NXT customers:
Expanded vendor payment options through BILL’s business payments network
Simpler vendor enrollment and payment setup
Faster vendor payment delivery across supported payment methods
Real-time payment visibility and streamlined reconciliation within their financial management workflow
Tiered approvals and controlled payment processes
The new capabilities are planned for a phased rollout, beginning with an early adopter program and progressing to limited availability for U.S.-based Financial Edge NXT customers. Initial availability will support domestic vendor payments only. Additional access and timing details will be shared as the rollout progresses.
As part of the broader partnership, BILL has also joined the Blackbaud Partner program, with additional integrations between the two platforms coming soon.
Learn more about how to get started with Payment Assistant, powered by BILL, here.
