The Ask Your Vendor feature lets you pay bills even when you don’t have your vendor’s bank information on file. You send a secure request by email, your vendor adds their payment details, and Lili automatically completes the payment for you once everything is submitted.
When you can use “Ask Your Vendor”
You can use Ask Your Vendor when:
- You are paying a bill to a vendor through Bill Pay.
- You have the vendor’s name and email address, but not their bank details.
- You want the vendor to provide their own ACH information directly and securely, instead of collecting it yourself.
At this time, Ask Your Vendor is designed for ACH payments to vendors in the United States. (If other payment types or regions are supported in your account, they will appear as options in the Bill Pay flow.
How to send a payment details request to your vendor
- Go to Bill Pay
- Sign in to your Lili account and open Bill Pay from the main menu.
- Select an unpaid bill or create a new bill for this vendor.
- Enter bill and vendor information
- Choose the vendor from your list or add a new vendor.
- Enter the bill amount, bill number, payment frequency and due date.
- Select Ask Your Vendor
- Click Pay Now to open the payment options for this bill.
- Under payment options, select Ask Your Vendor to have Lili collect the vendor’s ACH details on your behalf.
- Add your vendor’s email
- Enter the email address where your vendor should receive the payment details request.
- Make sure this email is accurate and monitored, since the vendor will use this link to submit their information.
- Review and send
- On the confirmation screen, review the vendor, bill amount, and email address.
- Click Confirm and Send Request. Lili will send your vendor an email with a secure link to submit their payment details.
What your vendor sees and needs to do
Once you send the request:
- Your vendor receives an email from Lili explaining that you are requesting their payment details in order to pay their bill.
- The email includes a secure link where they can enter the information needed to receive the ACH payment, such as their bank name, account number, and routing number.
- After they confirm and submit their details, Lili processes the payment automatically for the bill you created.
Your vendor does not need a Lili account to complete this step—they simply follow the link, provide their bank details, and the payment moves forward.
Timing, tracking, and notifications
- Until your vendor submits their bank information, the bill will remain in an Awaiting details status in Bill Pay.
- Once the vendor completes the form, Lili automatically initiates the ACH payment and updates the bill’s status to paid, depending on processing.
- You’ll receive a notification when the vendor submits their details and again when the payment has been successfully completed.
Standard ACH timing applies once the payment is sent. Processing time may vary based on the receiving bank and cut‑off times, but most ACH transfers complete within a few business days.
You’re right—those steps need to match the actual product behavior. Here’s a corrected, “Lili-fied” version of that section you can drop into the article.
If your vendor doesn’t respond
If your vendor doesn’t respond:
- Go to Bill Pay and open the specific bill that shows Awaiting Details.
- Click Cancel payment details request on that bill. This will stop the pending request and return the bill to an unpaid state.
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Once the request is canceled, click Pay Now again and either:
- Send a new Ask Your Vendor request to a corrected or updated email address, or
- Enter the vendor’s payment details yourself and choose a different payment method (for example, ACH or check, if available to you).
Security and what information is shared
- The Ask Your Vendor email contains a secure, Lili‑generated link for your vendor to submit their payment details.
- Lili uses this information only to process the payment for the bill you created and to store the vendor as a payable contact in your Bill Pay experience, where applicable.
- Your underlying Lili account is protected—vendors see only the information they need to receive payment, not your full internal account history or credentials.
Lili is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC. The Lili Visa® Debit Card is issued by Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. The Card may be used everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.
Wire Transfer services are provided by Column Bank N.A., Member FDIC. All wires are subject to acceptance criteria and risk-based review and may be rejected at the sole discretion of Column Bank N. A. or Lili App Inc.