How Ramp gets the most out of Ramp Bill Pay: 5 features you probably don’t know about and 1 that you do

At Ramp, we don’t just build financial tools—we use them. More than 10,000+ businesses rely on Ramp Bill Pay for invoices, but fewer than 30% take advantage of its most powerful automation features. The result? Unnecessary manual work, slower approvals, and missed savings

Here’s the five features you might not know about:

1. Payment step approvals
2. 2-way matching
3. Virtual card payments
4. Saved bill pay views
5. Recurring bills

Here’s how we use them—and how you can, too.

What you probably already know: Tax management

Over 75% of Ramp customers use our tax management feature.

Managing tax information is often a frustrating challenge for finance teams. Many businesses repeatedly request W9 forms from vendors over email, relying on inboxes as the only storage method, which leads to disorganization.

Ramp simplifies this by allowing finance teams to request tax forms with a single click. Vendors can upload W9s directly to their profiles, creating a centralized, easily accessible repository. This streamlines tax document management and keeps records organized.

How Ramp uses it

Previously, collecting and managing W9s used to be a manual, time-consuming process—emailing vendors individually, saving forms to Google Drive, and scrambling at year-end for missing documents.

Now, Ramp has seamlessly integrated tax form collection into our vendor intake process. Vendors receive an email request to upload their W9, and OCR technology extracts key details, minimizing manual entry.

During 1099 filing, Ramp further simplifies compliance by automatically verifying Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs), flagging 1099-eligible vendors, and updating records in real time. Instead of hours spent tracking vendor status, our team can now export a ready-to-use 1099 report in seconds.

Learn more about Bill Pay vendor tax support.

5 Ramp Bill Pay features you might be missing out on

Feature 1: Payment release approvals

Only 7.5% of Ramp customers use payment release approvals.

As businesses scale, so do the risks associated with payment approvals. Without a final checkpoint before funds are released, companies are more vulnerable to unauthorized transactions, errors, or last-minute changes that impact cash flow.

Ramp’s payment release approvals introduce a dedicated “Payer” role, allowing finance teams to separate bill approvals from payment authorization. This extra layer of control ensures that only select team members can release payments—reducing financial risk without slowing down operations.

How we use it at Ramp

At Ramp, our finance team uses payment release approvals as our final defensive line before cash goes out the door. While our AP team processes the bills and our business managers approve them, our Treasury team does a final review before releasing funds. This helps us prevent errors, flag unexpected charges, and maintain better oversight.

For even faster approvals, payers can release payments directly from their Ramp inbox, skipping the need to navigate through the bill dashboard—keeping workflows efficient without sacrificing control.

Tip: Payers can also release payments directly from their Ramp inbox without having to navigate through the bill dashboard.

Learn more about payment release approvals.

Feature 2: 2-way matching

Only 3% of bills are matched with purchase orders.

Matching bills to purchase orders can be one of the most time-consuming tasks for AP teams. Manually searching through records, cross-referencing amounts, and catching discrepancies not only slows down processing but also increases the risk of overpayments when vendors mistakenly (or intentionally) overbill.

Ramp’s 2-way matching automates this process by scanning incoming bills for PO numbers and suggesting matches using OCR technology. Instead of digging through records, teams can simply verify the system’s recommendations—saving time and reducing errors.

How Ramp uses it

Before implementing 2-way matching, our AP team spent hours every Friday afternoon manually reconciling POs and bills in NetSuite. Now, Ramp automatically detects PO numbers, matches the bills, and flags discrepancies

Just last month, a new IT vendor sent over a sizable bill for a recent purchase. Our AP team wasn’t aware of the transaction, but the system automatically matched the bill to the correct PO using OCR. With a quick check, they confirmed the PO was fully approved, the contract was executed, and the amount on the invoice matched perfectly—allowing them to process the bill confidently without any back-and-forth.

By eliminating manual matching and reducing overbilling risks, we’ve freed up time and improved accuracy in our AP process.

Learn more about importing and matching POs on Ramp Bill Pay.

Feature 3: Virtual Ramp card payments

Only 5% of bill payment volume is paid by card.

Many businesses miss out on potential savings simply by not using credit cards for bill payments. Even when vendors accept card payments, companies often default to ACH or wire transfers, forfeiting cash-back rewards and adding extra steps for transaction reconciliation.

On top of that, managing virtual cards manually—ensuring transactions match invoices, tracking spending, and preventing unauthorized charges—can be a logistical headache.

Ramp’s virtual card payments solve this by allowing businesses to pay bills with either existing Ramp cards or single-use virtual cards, while automatically matching transactions to invoices and syncing with accounting systems. When using Ramp, we notify you if we find that vendors you’re using accept cards.

How Ramp uses it to earn rewards

For our recurring SaaS subscriptions like Lattice, we use our existing Ramp cards to consistently earn cash back. But when working with new or one-time vendors, we take a different approach—single-use virtual cards.

We also love its auto-lock feature, which automatically disables cards after seven days when vendor delivery is enabled. This prevents unwanted subscription renewals and helps us keep tighter control over spend.

By using Ramp’s virtual cards strategically, we capture more rewards, prevent duplicate charges, and eliminate unnecessary manual work. For our customers who pay bills using Ramp virtual cards, that adds up to millions in cashback every year.

Learn more about paying invoices via Ramp card.

Feature 4: Saved Bill Pay views and dashboards

Less than 10% of Ramp customers use saved Bill Pay views.

Finance teams rely on real-time visibility to manage accounts payable efficiently, but constantly re-filtering and sorting dashboards wastes valuable time. Different team members need different views—AP managers may focus on upcoming due dates, while controllers track high-value payments or failed transactions. Without saved views, critical bills can slip through the cracks.

Ramp’s customizable Bill Pay views solve this by allowing teams to set filters, sorts, and columns that persist every time they log in—so they see what matters instantly.

How we use it at Ramp

We’ve set up tailored views to streamline our workflows:

• "Today's Urgent" view: Flags bills due within the next 48 hours that exceed $10,000, ensuring high-priority payments get processed on time.
• International wires view: Helps our team track and release global payments, preventing delays caused by banking cutoffs.
• Payment failures view: The first thing we check every morning—any failed vendor payments show up immediately, so we can resolve issues before they escalate.

By using saved views, our team avoids manual sorting, prioritizes critical payments, and ensures smooth AP operations—without wasted effort.

Learn more about saved Bill Pay views.

Feature 5: Recurring bills

25% of Ramp customers use our recurring bills feature.

Manually creating and approving the same bills every month is a drain on finance teams—especially when payments need to be split across departments or follow complex approval flows. Without automation, teams risk delays, errors, and unnecessary manual work.

Our recurring bill feature eliminates this by automatically generating scheduled invoices, routing them for approval, and processing payments—all without requiring manual input every billing cycle.

How Ramp uses recurring bills

At Ramp, we use recurring bills to simplify predictable expenses while maintaining oversight where it matters. For fixed costs like office rent, insurance premiums, and service contracts, we’ve automated invoice creation and approval routing. This ensures payments are scheduled on time, reducing the risk of missed deadlines or last-minute processing.

Learn more about recurring bill payments.

Manage invoices 10x faster with Ramp Bill Pay

Finance teams don’t have time to chase invoices, wait on approvals, or manually process payments. Yet, while many businesses use Ramp Bill Pay, few take full advantage of its automation capabilities. The result? Unnecessary delays, errors, and missed opportunities to improve efficiency.

At Ramp, we’ve seen firsthand how automating approvals, streamlining payments, and optimizing vendor management can transform AP operations. Companies that fully integrate these features dramatically reduce processing time, improve financial controls, and minimize manual work.

Take the Hospital Association of Oregon, for example. By leveraging Ramp’s automation tools, they cut their AP batch processing from 10 hours down to just minutes:

“Our previous bill pay process probably took a good 10 hours per AP batch. Now it just takes a couple of minutes between getting an invoice entered, approved, and processed.” —Jason Hershey, VP of Finance and Accounting

If your AP process still feels like a time sink, it doesn’t have to be. The automation tools you need are already built into Ramp Bill Pay—start using them today and move faster with less effort.