Rule types
Bill Pay has two types of rules, evaluated in sequence:| Type | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Routing rules | Determine where a bill goes | ”Forward all electricity bills over $5,000 to the CFO inbox” |
| GL coding rules | Assign a general ledger code | ”Tag all water bills at the Chicago site with GL code 6200” |
Creating a rule
Choose a rule type
Go to Bill Pay > Rules and click New rule. Select either Add GL coding rule or Add routing rule.
Name your rule
Give the rule a descriptive name (e.g., “Northeast electricity to AP team”) and optionally add a description explaining its purpose.
Build conditions
Drag condition blocks from the palette onto the canvas. Each condition tests a specific field against a value — for example, “Commodity equals Electricity” or “Total charges is greater than 1000.”
Add logic groups
Combine conditions with AND (all must match), OR (any can match), or NOT (inverts a condition). Drag group blocks from the palette to create complex logic.
Configure actions
Drag action blocks onto the canvas. For routing rules, choose where the bill should go. For GL coding rules, specify the GL code to assign.
Condition fields
You can build conditions using any of these bill, site, and account attributes:| Category | Field | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Bill | Commodity | The utility type (Electricity, Gas, Water, Waste, Fuel, Solar, District) |
| Bill | Total charges | The total dollar amount on the bill |
| Bill | Flagged status | Whether the bill has been manually flagged |
| Bill | Utility provider | The specific datasource or provider |
| Bill | Currency | The billing currency (USD, CAD, EUR, etc.) |
| Site | Site | A specific site or set of sites |
| Site | Site tag | Tags assigned to the bill’s site |
| Site | Site location | The geographic location of the site |
| Account | Account | A specific utility account |
| Connection | Connection | The connection that collected the bill |
Operators
Each condition uses an operator to compare the field against a value:| Operator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| equals / does not equal | Exact match |
| is one of / is not one of | Match against a list |
| contains / does not contain | Partial text match |
| is greater than / is at least | Numeric comparison |
| is less than / is at most | Numeric comparison |
| is between | Numeric range |
| is empty / is not empty | Checks if the field has a value |
Action types
Routing rule actions
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Forward to email | Sends the bill to an email destination |
| Route to AP integration | Pushes the bill to a connected ERP system |
| Request funds | Enters the centralized payment path where Nectar handles payment |
| Notify user | Sends a notification email to specified team members |
GL coding rule actions
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Assign GL code | Tags the bill with a general ledger account code |
Priority and evaluation order
Rules are evaluated in the order shown in the rules table. If multiple routing rules match the same bill, all matching actions fire — but delivery is deduplicated so each destination only receives the bill once. You can reorder rules by dragging them in the rules list.Dry-run preview
Before activating a rule, click Preview to test it against your recent bills. The preview shows:- How many bills would have matched this rule
- Which specific bills matched and which didn’t
- What actions would have fired
Version history
Every time you save changes to a rule, a new version is created. You can view the full edit history by clicking Edit history when viewing a rule. This audit trail shows who changed what and when, making it easy to understand why routing behavior changed.Catch-all destination
If a bill doesn’t match any routing rule, it enters a Pending routing state and waits for manual assignment. To avoid this, you can designate a catch-all destination — a fallback that receives any unmatched bills. Set this from the rules page using the catch-all configuration option.Related pages
- Destinations — set up the email addresses and ERP systems your rules route to
- Routing history — see how rules evaluated against actual bills
- Glossary — Routing rule — definition