While this style guide is our content gospel at Bill.com, nothing is set in stone. Language, and therefore content, is a living entity—the way we write, speak, and understand changes all the time, and our needs as a business change. Very few things in this style guide are immutable. We welcome discussion, debate, requests, and feedback :)
Content Principles
When we write, we speak directly to real people. They aren’t just users, they’re human beings. They come from a variety of backgrounds, regions, and walks of life. They use our product to improve the way they do business, and, by extension, the way they live their lives. As such, we aim to:
Respect
Above all, remember that our users are people. Don’t patronize, don’t assume, be considerate. Treat their time as though it’s as valuable as yours—because it is!
Empower
Bill.com lets people take back control over areas of their business that may have felt like a headache and a hassle for a long time. Think about what that means, and bring it with you when you write about your feature.
Educate
We have a complex product, and our users come with a wide variety of technological literacy. It’s our job to make sure our product is easy to understand and use the first time. Make opportunities to get into the nitty-gritty and learn more available and tempting.
These goals might seem vague—how are you supposed to apply that to writing? Well, one tip is to think about the copy in Bill.com as a conversation between you and the user.
Be approachable
People will be more open and engaged if the voice on the other end of the line is friendly and warm. Be inviting, be human. Don’t be overly strict about grammar if it makes you sound stodgy and old-fashioned.
Be professional
There's a fine line between easy-going and conversational, and demeaning and overly cutesy. Remember, we're still talking to business professionals.
Be helpful
Again, think of this as a conversation. Guide the user through an activity or down a path, giving them the information they need along the way.
Voice and Tone
Voice
Product voice is like your own voice—you use your voice expresses your personality with a unique rhythm and vocabulary.
At Bill.com we are friendly, approachable, and human. We’re easy-going, helpful, efficient, and accurate. In the style of MailChimp's excellent content guide, we are:
Precise but not pedantic
Friendly but not unprofessional
Concise but not abrupt
Smart but not arrogant
Tone
Tone is how you use voice. Sometimes the way you speak is relaxed and easy-going, and sometimes it’s sharp and urgent. Having dinner with friends sounds different from taking control in an emergency; tone will vary depending on the situation.
The loading page where a user sees their sync in progress might be a great place to let a user know it’ll be done before they’ve finished their cup of coffee—friendly while setting expectations, and a little cheeky too. But you wouldn’t use that same tone when letting a user know their payment failed due to insufficient funds.
Grammar and Mechanics
Grammar and mechanics are rules for how we use language—they give writing consistency and structure. However, it’s okay to bend or break some rules for the sake of maintaining our friendly, conversational voice.
Abbreviations and acronyms
In short copy, use full names whenever possible. In longer pieces (such as emails or support articles), define acronyms/abbreviations before using them.
Yes: Only unpaid bills and invoices sync from QuickBooks Online (QBO) to Bill.com. We don’t sync old paid or partially paid bills or invoices to QBO.
No: Only unpaid bills and invoices sync from QBO to Bill.com. We don’t sync old paid or partially paid bills or invoices to QBO.
Active voice
In an active sentence, the subject performs the verb’s action. In a passive sentence, the subject has the action done to it. While it isn’t grammatically incorrect, passive voice sounds vague and tends to be wordy. If you aren’t familiar with passive voice, check out the examples below.
Yes (active): When your customer pays the invoice, we’ll email you.
No (passive): You’ll get an email when the invoice is paid by your customer.
Yes (active): We’ll ask some questions to help us verify your identity.
No (passive): Some questions will be asked to help us verify your identity.
Capitalization
We use both sentence case (just the first letter of the first word in a sentence is capitalized) and title case (the first letter of each word, except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, is capitalized).
Unless a word/phrase is a proper noun, or being used in title case, don’t capitalize it.
Contractions
Definitely use them! They help us sound relaxed, friendly, and non-robotic.
Yes: Sorry! We can’t find that vendor.
No: Sorry! We cannot find that vendor.
Numbers
General
Use numerals for all numbers.
Yes: You have 12 new documents in your Inbox.
No: You have twelve new documents in your Inbox.
Yes: 7 out of 10 vendors accept ePayment invites.
No: Seven out of 10 vendors accept ePayment invites.
Currency
Our customers pay bills in a range of currencies. In some cases, the same currency symbol represents multiple different currencies (for example, nearly ten different currencies use $!), so to avoid confusion, use three-letter currency codes instead of currency symbols. Always use numerals, rather than spelled-out numbers.
Yes: You paid ABC Bakery GBP200.28.
No: You paid ABC Bakery £200.28.
Yes: You paid ABC Bakery USD200.28.
No: You paid ABC Bakery two hundred dollars and twenty-eight cents.
Percentages
Percentages are expressed in numerals, with the symbol %.
Yes: Spend 50% less time paying bills!
No: Spend fifty percent less time paying bills!
Punctuation
Follow conventional rules for punctuation. See below for specifics.
Use Oxford, or serial, commas in lists. This means including a comma before the "and" or "or" at the end of a list.
Ex: Red, white, and blue
Periods can make copy sound terse. Don't use them on buttons, CTAs, or in other short, standalone copy. If the steps in a list are short, there’s no need to use periods (except when one of the steps is a longer sentence:)
Example:
Hover over the gear, and then click Settings
Under Receivables, click Email Templates
Click Edit
Make any desired changes to your Invoice email template. Remember, the Content tool on the right can be used to add customized content to your template.
Click Save
Formatting
Use bold when referring to an in-app element, CTA, button, or navigation label.
Example
Under Receivables, click Email Templates
Miscellaneous
File types, extensions
When referring to file types in general, use all uppercase, without the preceding period. Add a lowercase ’s’, without an apostrophe, for plural.
JPG
PDF
DOC
PNGs
When referring to specific files, use all lowercase.
NetSuiteSyncSetupGuide.pdf
summervacation.jpg
Referring to Bill.com
Our company’s name is Bill.com. Always capitalize the ‘B’ in Bill.com, and capitalize all other Bill.com product and service names. Don’t use “BDC” in any user-facing context.
In-app Elements
Navigation
Use title case for main navigation. Navigation copy should be short and clear.
Main / Global Navigation
Actions
Overview
Inbox
Vendors
Bills
Payments Out
Customers
Invoices
Payments In
Network
Reports
Support
Upgrade
Actions menu
Send an invoice
Received payments
Enter a bill
Charge a customer
Add a vendor
Add a customer
Information components
Toggles and check boxes
Use complete sentences, sentence case, and appropriate punctuation.
Tooltips
Tooltips are used to convey additional information to the user, often in FTU (first time use) experiences, warnings, and errors. They should be no more than a sentence or two—quickly and easily digested.
Toasts
Toasts are small, unobtrusive messages that appear briefly at the top of the page. They’re used to congratulate the user on successfully completing a task, as warning or recommendation, or to be purely informational. Use complete sentences / sentence case.
Inline "toast"
These are larger elements containing a header, subheader, and CTA. They’re used to instruct a user, and prompt them to complete a task, like inviting vendors to connect.
Form fields + ghost text
Form fields
Form field titles should be one or two words, usually nouns.
Examples (not a complete list:
First name
Last name
Address
Address 2
City
Vendor name
Vendor email
Ghost text
Ghost text is light grey text found inside a form field, offering an explanation of what to enter. It disappears once the user begins typing in that field. Use ghost text in a form field only if something really needs to be explained. Make sure you aren’t being repetitive or redundant.
Examples:
Yes: (Field: Address) This is where we’ll mail your vendor’s checks.
No: (Field: Address) Enter your vendor’s address here.
Buttons
Button copy should be short—generally no more than 3-4 words, and should contain an action word (with a few exceptions).
Use sentence case for buttons, and generally don’t use end punctuation. Exceptions can be made for the occasional exclamation point.
Examples (not a complete list)
Pay
Approve
Deny
Edit
Review
Connect
Invite
New
Note: This is one of the few exceptions to the ‘action word’ rule. In this case, we exchange an action word for brevity: “Create a new bill” vs. ”New”
Get started
Send me a text
Invite team
Headers and sub-headers
Headers and sub-headers provide the user with information about the page/section they’re viewing. Employ a good hierarchy of information—the header’s purpose is to draw the user in and make them want to read further, so use your most important and/or exciting keywords here.
Use title case for headers and sentence case for sub-headers.
Some Bill.com-specific words are used/spelled in various ways across teams and departments. Here's how we use them when they're customer-facing, along with some definitions where necessary.
Actions
approvals
Bill.com's unique cloud-based workflow, allowing key people within a business to review bills, and give the go-ahead before they're paid.
pay
cancel payment
top a scheduled payment before the funds are withdrawn from a user's bank account.
void payment
Stop a payment after the funds are withdrawn from a user's bank account, but before the payment lands in their vendor's account.
sync
Bill.com connects with the user's accounting system, so payment information always stays up-to-date.
connect
Connecting with other people who use Bill.com enables users to pay bills and get paid electronically.
invite
Asking a non-Bill.com user to open a free account or asking another existing Bill.com user to connect so they can transact with Bill.com subscribers electronically.
Objects
ePayment
A Bill.com ACH payment, sent from one bank account to another.
check (never "Check")
A paper check mailed from a Bill.com Payables user, to their vendor.
bill (never "Bill")
A statement of money owed for goods and/or services supplied
invoice (never "Invoice")
An itemized bill for goods/services, with individual prices, total charge, payment terms, and more. Invoices can be emailed to customers instantly, or mailed through the US Postal Service.
credit
A statement reducing the amount of money owed to a vendor for a future bill.
process date (never "Process Date")
The date on which funds are withdrawn from a user's bank account, to pay a bill.
People
vendor (never "Vendor")
A person or organization from whom goods and/or services are purchased.
customer (never "Customer")
A person or organization who purchases goods and/or services.
Places
Overview
The first place users land when they sign in—here they'll see a bird's-eye view of their money movement.
Inbox
The home for documents sent directly into a user's Bill.com account, where they can then be turned into bills, vendor docs, and more.
Payments In
A comprehensive, filterable list of incoming and already-received payments.
Payments Out
A comprehensive, filterable list of outgoing and already-sent payments.
Bill.com Vocab
Product emails
As a rule, emails should follow all the guidelines laid out in Content Principles, Voice and Tone, and Grammar and Mechanics. Here are some additional guidelines, more specific to writing emails:
Email elements
“From” name
This identifies the sender in the Inbox. Most of our emails come from “The Bill.com Team”, but some are styled to be recognizable to a vendor unfamiliar with Bill.com (Ex: Amelia Goldberg on behalf of Amelia’s Bakery).
Subject line
Subject lines should be straightforward and easily understandable. Many of our users are accountants and work in multiple Bill.com accounts, so subject lines should contain the token <org name> when possible (and when contextually appropriate), so the company in question is immediately apparent.
Example:
Payments to <org name> are on hold
<org name>, welcome to the new <product name>
Payment for <org name> was denied and needs review
Email body
As always, stay concise! Our product is vast and our emails may contain information the user needs to act on right away. Use good information hierarchy, and put the most important info first.
Call to action
Whether you’re prompting the user to approve a bill, accept an invite, or just sign in, the next step should be clear and you should include a CTA to reflect that step. Email CTAs sometimes break the “3-4 word” rule for in-product CTAs. That’s okay :)
Examples:
Sign in
Approve bills now
Accept the invite & get paid faster
Footer
Our emails contain two standard tokens in the footer. Right now we don’t have an Unsubscribe footer, but we should, and will be adding one soon. Here’s what we have right now:
<phishing info>
Be safe! Hover your cursor over links in any email before clicking, to verify the location is safe. Bill.com links always start with https://app.bill.com, http://www.bill.com or http://www.cashflow.bill.com.
<notification only>
Please don't reply to this automatically generated email.
Perspective
Use the 3rd person: “we.”