Merchant cards, mobile payments, and William AI Guidance 2.0: September Apron product updates

Nobody wants to rush through important business payments, but having the option to speed things up and find what you need more easily is always a plus.

Starting today, you can pay bills on mobile while you're out and about, sort paid bills from unpaid ones at a glance, view card details in the web app, and more.

This month also sees the introduction of our most significant updates and improvements to William AI since its launch. Keep reading for more information on what this means for access to William AI, and how it affects the way we will price Apron going forward.

William AI Guidance 2.0 (and platform updates)

William has evolved from a simple assistant into a full digital team member embedded across your bookkeeping workflows. Here’s a snapshot of what’s new:

• Free-form guidance: Write rules in plain English for categories, VAT, tracking, and auto-publishing just as you'd explain them to a colleague.

• Proactive inbox suggestions: William spots repeating manual corrections and offers ready-made rules with one-click saving.

• Referenced document context: Every suggestion links back to source documents so you can see the reasoning behind the rule.

• Line-item precision & tracking prediction: Pre-fills tracking categories automatically and splits complex supermarket or multi-line invoices into distinct categories and tax rates.

Along with Guidance 2.0, William AI is now available to every Apron user, moving out of tier-restricted access to become part of our core Capture offering. To support this innovation, we’ve also updated our platform pricing structure (while locking in our £199 fee cap for our accountant and bookkeeper partners who reach Gold tier status by the 1st of December, 2026).

Read our dedicated deep-dive blog to learn more about William AI Guidance 2.0 and what these updates mean for Apron pricing.

Missing documents workflow improvements

The way you track down and manage missing documents as part of our ‘Missing documents’ workflow is also getting some upgrades.

• Per-transaction request & bulk actions: Request individual transactions or selected batches without re-chasing everyone;

• Bulk actions for ‘No document’: Bulk publish / mark "No document" transactions at scale.

• Audit log for chasing: Last requested date + request count, visible on the row.

• Visibility settings for bank accounts: Exclude accounts that don't need chasing. 

• Better filtering: By amount, last requested, and more.

• Plus the ability to export a CSV file.

Introducing Merchant cards

Welcome to the only subscription card you’ll ever need. Merchant cards are a new type of business expense card that work in the same way as Apron Card, only with more specific controls to help you manage spending.

Pick the merchant when you create the card, and that's the only place it works. No accidental spend, no card details floating around that could be used elsewhere.

Fine-tune your controls with monthly limits: Set what the subscription costs. If a renewal comes in above it, the payment declines and you hear about it before the money leaves, not after. A £120 plan becomes £180 becomes £240, and nobody notices for a year. A limit notices immediately.

Cancel with a click: Want the subscription to stop? Freeze the card. Done with it for good? Terminate it. No login hunt, and no email battle with a merchant who won’t let you leave without a fight.

Seamless handovers: Transfer card ownership to someone else when a team member leaves. Same card details, same merchant, same spending limits. Your subscription carries on like nothing ever happened.

Real FX rates & cashback: We use market-leading exchange rates with no hidden fees, plus every purchase earns points turning into up to 1% unlimited cashback.

Speaking of Apron Card, we’ve added a handy new feature to the Apron web app.

Apron Card: View card details in the web app

You can now view and copy your Apron Card details directly in our web app. Whether you're making an online purchase from your desk or setting up recurring payments, accessing your card number, expiry, and CVC takes just one click.

And once you’ve paid your bills, sorting them in Apron is a cinch.

Better bill sorting in a click

Bills you've already paid, and documents uploaded purely for bookkeeping, now sit in their own collapsible section above your main list of bills.

Give them a quick scan whenever you like, then collapse them for a clean view of exactly what still needs your attention. It’s the fastest way for business owners and bookkeepers to keep accounts payable clear and organised.

Out and about and want to shrink your to-do list?

Mobile payments with the Apron app

Payments have officially arrived on the Apron mobile app. Built for making one-off payments on the go, you can now pay bills or send instant transfers straight from your phone.

Suppliers no longer need to wait for you to get back to your desk, helping you build better relationships while knocking out to-dos wherever your day takes you.

Planned dates (formerly Cycles)

Batch payments are getting a makeover this month, too.

For teams that batch together payments in advance, Planned dates gives you a tool built for exactly that.

Batching made easy: Set a planned date on any bill to mark when you intend to pay it, filter or group your list by those dates, and update planned dates across multiple bills in a single action.

Two-way Xero sync: If you plan payments in advance in Xero, they automatically flow into Apron with Xero-sync enabled —no re-entry needed.

New to Apron?

Apron is the platform for the whole life of a payment. From the moment money is spent to the moment the transaction is reconciled, it all flows through one place: capturing invoices and receipts, paying bills, running payroll, and managing team expenses.

Plus, you can put any payment on your credit card or earn points on everyday business payments – bills, payroll, HMRC – for a small fee. Points can be converted into Virgin Points to use towards flights with Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Hotel stays, Virgin Voyages, experiences and everyday treats*. It’s a smarter way to stretch your cash flow, or to turn essential business spending into real rewards.

Get started with Apron.

*Terms apply. Reward flights and upgrades subject to availability and taxes, fees and carrier-imposed surcharges.