Chances are your customers have paid a 1BILL bill before, for a school fee, an internet bill or a test fee. That makes 1BILL an easy way for them to pay you from JazzCash, Easypaisa or a bank app, with no screenshots. This guide shows how to create a 1BILL invoice for your business, what the consumer number and prefix mean, and what usually goes wrong. Paying a bill yourself? The payer steps and videos are on a separate page.
What 1LINK and 1BILL actually are
1LINK is a company set up in 2003 by a group of Pakistani banks. It runs the shared switch that connects banks to each other. When you use another bank's ATM, or send money by IBFT to a different bank, 1LINK is usually in the middle.
1BILL is one of 1LINK's products. It's a bill-payment service. 1LINK says it lets banks and non-banks on its network collect payments for billers. Payers can use a branch counter or a digital channel, like an app or internet banking. Utilities, ISPs, government bodies, schools and many private businesses collect this way.
So, is 1BILL and 1LINK the same? No. Think of 1LINK as the road and 1BILL as one bus route on it. People mix them up because bank apps often show both names on the same screen.
1BILL is big. 1LINK's own biller list from August 2025 shows more than 4,300 billers. Education is the largest group, with 1,901 entries. Health and fitness had 96.
Consumer number, Billing ID and prefix explained
Every 1BILL bill has one number the payer types into their app. Different apps and billers give it different names. They all mean the same thing.
| Word on the screen | What it means |
|---|---|
| Consumer number | The full number that points to one bill, or one customer, at one biller. |
| Billing ID or Bill ID | The same number. Many businesses and billing platforms use this name. |
| Voucher or invoice number | The same number again. Common on fee vouchers and online orders. |
| Prefix | The first few digits of that number. They point to the biller or its platform. |
So what is the consumer number in 1BILL? It's the full number that tells the bank app exactly which bill to fetch. A 1BILL consumer number for business use is simply the number your billing system gives each customer or each bill.
What is the 1BILL prefix? It's the first part of that number. 1LINK explains that because of the prefix, payers don't have to pick the biller from a long drop-down menu. The bank app reads the prefix and knows where to ask "how much is due?". In 1LINK's published list, prefixes are six-digit codes.
Many businesses can share one prefix. That happens when they bill through the same platform. The prefix points to the platform, and the rest of the number points to the exact customer. In 1LINK's August 2025 list, one shared prefix alone covers more than 1,200 billers.
Invoice or top-up: two kinds of 1BILL payment
1LINK lists a few payment types on 1BILL. Two of them matter for most businesses:
- Invoice (fixed amount). You set the amount. The payer sees it and pays exactly that. Once paid, the bill shows as paid.
- Top-up (variable amount). The payer types how much to send. This suits wallets, prepaid balances and deposits.
If you're setting up a 1BILL invoice for business dues like monthly fees, rent or internet bills, you want the invoice type. In bank apps it usually shows as Invoice/Voucher. If a customer picks Top-up by mistake, the app may say it can't find their ID. It's an easy mistake to make.
1LINK's bill format also has room for two amounts: one if paid by the due date, and one after it. That's how a late fee can appear in the payer's app by itself once the due date passes.
How to create a 1BILL invoice: the two routes
There's no public form where you type an amount and get a 1BILL number. To create 1BILL invoices, your business has to be connected to 1BILL in one of two ways.
Route 1: Become a 1LINK biller yourself
Large billers, like utilities, big school groups and ISPs, often connect directly. The usual path looks like this:
- Contact 1LINK or your bank about joining 1BILL as a biller.
- Complete the agreements and business checks they ask for.
- Set up the collection account where your money will land.
- Build or buy a system that answers 1LINK's bill inquiry and payment requests. 1LINK lists these APIs on its developer portal.
- Test with 1LINK, get your prefix, then go live.
You get your own prefix and full control. But it's a proper tech project, with paperwork, testing and a system someone has to keep running. It makes sense if you have a lot of bills and a tech team.
Route 2: Use a platform that's already connected
1LINK's list names a group of 1BILL aggregators. These are companies already connected to 1BILL, and most businesses on the list bill through one of them. For a gym, school, academy, society or ISP, this is usually the quicker road.
- Pick a billing platform that's connected to 1BILL.
- Sign up and give the bank account where you want your money.
- Add your customers with their amount and due date.
- Each customer or bill gets a consumer number. Send it to them.
- When they pay, the bill shows as paid on your side.
| Direct 1LINK biller | Through a connected platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Large billers with a tech team | Small and mid-size businesses |
| Prefix | Your own | The platform's, shared |
| Tech work | You build and run the connection | The platform runs it |
| Time to start | Longer: agreements, build, testing | Shorter: mostly sign-up and setup |
| Fees | Agreed with your bank and 1LINK | Agreed with the platform |
| Reminders and receipts | You build them | Depends on the platform |
What your customer sees when they pay
This part is the same for every biller. The payer never needs to know about prefixes.
- Open JazzCash, Easypaisa or a bank app such as HBL, UBL, Meezan, Allied, Bank Alfalah, Faysal or NayaPay.
- Go to Bill Payment, then 1BILL, then Invoice/Voucher.
- Paste or type the consumer number.
- Check the details the app pulls up, such as the name and the amount.
- Confirm with PIN or OTP. The app shows a confirmation.
The name check matters. If the name on screen isn't yours, the payer knows they've got the wrong number before any money moves. Menu names change a little from app to app, and some banks also take 1BILL payments at the branch counter.
For bank-by-bank steps and short videos, send your customers to the 1BILL payment help page.
Want 1BILL without the setup work?
Wasooli.Online gives each customer a Billing ID and sends the bill on WhatsApp. When they pay from any bank app or wallet, it shows in their khata and a receipt goes out by itself.
When the money reaches you, and what it costs
Two different things happen when someone pays a 1BILL bill. Don't mix them up.
- Payment confirmation is real-time. The payer gets a confirmation straight away, and the bill is marked paid in the biller's system.
- Settlement is when the money actually lands in your bank account. It follows the cycle in your agreement with your bank or platform. It isn't always the same day.
1LINK doesn't publish a standard 1BILL price on its product page. In practice there's usually a charge on each payment. Depending on your agreement, it's either added to what the payer pays or taken out of what you receive. Before you sign anything, ask:
- How much is the fee per payment? Is it a flat amount or a percentage?
- Who pays it, me or my customer? Can I choose?
- Is there a setup fee or a monthly fee?
- How many days until money reaches my account? What about weekends and bank holidays?
- Where do I see what was paid and what was settled?
Common 1BILL problems and how to fix them
When a 1BILL payment fails, check these first. Here's what the payer sees and what you can do.
| Problem | What the payer sees | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong or mistyped ID | An error like "invalid consumer number" | Send the ID as text they can copy. Ask them to paste it, not type it. |
| Picked the wrong type | ID not found under Top-up | Tell them to choose Invoice/Voucher. |
| Due date passed | A higher amount, or the bill can't be paid | Issue a fresh bill or a new due date. |
| Already paid | The bill shows as paid | Send the receipt so they stop trying. |
| Wants to pay part | The app only takes the full amount | Agree the amount, then update the bill to match. |
| Paid, but you can't see it | Money has left their account | Ask for the transaction ID and check with your platform or bank. |
Part payments and advance payments
A fixed 1BILL invoice is all or nothing. If a customer can only pay Rs 1,500 of a Rs 3,000 fee, the bill amount has to change first. Advance payments work the same way: the bill needs to show the bigger amount. That's easy with a billing system that tracks each customer's balance, and painful by hand.
Paid on the wrong bill
Sometimes a parent pays a sibling's ID, or a tenant pays last month's bill. The money is real, it's just on the wrong bill. Fix it in your records and tell the customer. Don't ask them to pay again.
How to get more customers paying through 1BILL
- Send the ID on WhatsApp as plain text, so it can be copied with one tap. A photo of a bill can't be copied.
- Add a help link, like our 1BILL help page, for people who've never used 1BILL.
- Send the bill a few days before the due date, then one reminder close to it. Our payment reminder messages have ready wording.
- Send a receipt every time. People trust a new way to pay once they've seen it work.
- Keep cash open for a while. Some customers take a month or two to switch. That's normal.
Wasooli.Online does this part for you. Each customer gets a Billing ID they can pay through 1BILL from almost any Pakistani bank app or wallet. Bills and reminders go out on WhatsApp in Urdu or English. When someone pays, the payment posts to their khata and a receipt reaches them on WhatsApp. Raast is supported too, so read our Raast for business guide if you want both.